


Shadowboxing

by sdlucly



Category: The OC (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Drama, First Time, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Ryan is a civil engineer, Slow Build, the boys in college
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 73,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16775473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdlucly/pseuds/sdlucly
Summary: The answer comes in chopped words, brief sentences, at least that Ryan hears. Progressive disease, inherited eye disease that affects the retina, no cure as of now, gradual degeneration of the rods and cones, loss of peripheral vision and photosensitivity.





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> I remember writing this story, way back when. According to my notes, it took me 10 months to finish it. From April 2006 to February 2007. I remember putting one song in repeat, and crying as I wrote a few of the scenes. I remember thinking, I want to finish this story so bad. And I remember feeling like Ryan was a college friend of mine. 
> 
> This story was supposed to be a short story. And then it just kinda grew.

It's late November of 2004 when Ryan, sitting in his AP Literature class -- talked into taking by Seth, of course -- blinks and can't quite see what's being written on the blackboard. He pinches the bridge of his nose, a headache starting to form just above his eyebrows and seeming to move downwards, to the very back of his eyes. He tries to focus on the class, but his head hurts too much for him to be able to.

Seth places a hand on his arm, squeezing softly. "Dude, what's wrong?"

Ryan shakes his head. "Headache," he grits through his teeth.

He spends the rest of the class with his eyes narrowed and following the words of the professor, but unable to take notes. He copies Seth's notes later that afternoon, waves off any comment about the subject, and entirely forgets the incident the next day.

*****

By the end of the following winter, March of 2005, Ryan has to accept that following the teacher's handwriting on the blackboard has gotten too difficult for him. He can't manage on his own, not anymore - not without asking whoever is sitting by his side if that's an s or an a, if that's an 8 or a 3.

He tells Kirsten and Sandy one Saturday afternoon that it seems like he can't see the blackboard, not when the teacher writes in very small numbers. Kirsten smiles, pats his hand that clenches around the edge of the table, and tells him that they'll schedule an optometrist appointment for Monday afternoon.

Kirsten goes with Ryan and stands by his side all the way into the doctor's office. She watches with her arms folded on her chest as Ryan tries to go over the printed letters on one of the office walls and can only see halfway down. Ryan's diagnosed as nearsighted and prescribed glasses. They leave the office, and then go to choose frames and the next day, Kirsten swings by to pick them up. 

Ryan doesn't like them, as was to be assumed. Seth says that the glasses totally become Ryan, and Sandy says that he looks older. Kirsten smiles, pats his shoulder, and tells him that he looks very handsome in them. Still, Ryan gets contacts and only uses the glasses in the house.

*****

Sometime during Ryan's final breakup with Marissa in his senior year, 2006, he starts having trouble seeing the slides during class when the lights are out. He grumbles to himself, hates the fact that he might need a new prescription - a higher prescription - and he mutters under his breath, "I'm fucking going blind." The irony of it all would not be lost on him later.

Ryan sighs and says through clenched teeth during one Wednesday dinner that he needs to go see the optometrist again. Kirsten nods, says she'll get an appointment for the following afternoon and she'll call him to let him know when to meet her. They do that and Ryan is right, his prescription has gone up a whole 1.5 in one eye, and 1.8 in the other. Expected, the doctor says, Ryan's still young. His sight might take a couple of years to stabilize.

When Ryan gets his new glasses back, he hates them. The new lenses are thicker and make his eyes seem smaller than they actually are. He uses the new contacts most of the time, even when he's at home, he hates the glasses that much.

*****

The last seven months of 2006 are hard for everyone. Seth calls Ryan more often than not during the months Ryan isn't living with the Cohens. He misses them more than he can put into words. But he feels toxic; tainted and blurred altogether. Being alone sits better with him. He doesn't tell Seth about the fights, but he ends up finding out at the end. Ryan had known Seth would find out. It was... it was meant to be, because Seth always had a way of knowing things he shouldn't know, especially getting them out of Ryan.

Ryan finds his way back to the Cohen house by Sandy's lead, and it fits. It feels right to sit on the futon with Seth sitting by his side, to his left, and breathe in the air that smells like the ocean and, strangely, of home. He feels empty and a bit hollow after telling Julie everything he could think of about Marissa. That night, Thanksgiving, Ryan sits at the edge of the pool. He's looking out towards the ocean and the sky when Seth meets him there and sits by his side, not saying a word. Ryan breathes in and wonders. Wonders about words Seth wants to say but seems to bite back, and smiles down at his hands because Seth is giving him silence, and he's grateful for that.

Ryan starts making plans for Berkeley during the first months of 2007. He thinks about the fall semester and finally starting college even as he tries to read a book -- Poe, pages not making sense even when he goes through them the second time. Seth walks into the pool house and lets the map of Tahiti fall from his fingers to the bed beside him. He asks once about Summer and RISD but Seth shakes his head, so he doesn't ask again -- not after the epic fight about George only weeks before.

Sophie Rose Cohen is born on August 2nd, 2007. Seth points out that date is six days before the anniversary of Sandy meeting Ryan and bringing him to the Cohen house. She weights seven pounds eight ounces and is a joy to both her parents and her older brothers. 

Ryan and Seth share a dorm room, and 07-08 passes in something of a blur. They are both balancing a heavy work load -- dealing with too many new things to care about anything except the next test, the next paper, the next deadline, the next lab report. Or at least Ryan does. Seth takes freshmen year with a little less concern about the subjects and more excitement toward this new part of their lives. Ryan just chuckles when Seth gets all psyched about it.

If Ryan starts noticing that he has to sit in the first three rows of the classrooms to be able to see properly, he doesn't say anything. If he realizes that the computer screen starts making his eyes sting and his head hurt, he pretends he doesn't.

*****

By the time finals are done, in May of 2008, Ryan is thankful for small miracles. He can't quite handle anymore books with tiny printing or computer screens or last minute changes in the tests that are written down on the blackboard that he sat too fucking far away from to be able to see it by himself. He's gotten used to asking Tatiana and Eve for help. Claire doesn't even say word, only pushes her notebook closer to him. Once, Eve had to explain that Ryan couldn't see the changes in question four, so both of them wouldn't get their tests annulled.

The summer of 2008 arrives with arms spread wide and the promise of not having to read another book until he's back for sophomore year. He doesn't have many headaches, considering the highlight of his days, back in Newport, back in the pool house, is baby sitting for Sophie as he plays games with Seth in the plasma TV in the den.

However, the moment they return to school and Ryan tries to read the second class of Structural Analysis, he gives up, lets the book fall down to the floor, and closes his eyes. He leans his head back against the backboard of the bed, promising himself to make an appointment with an optometrist as soon as he can.

*****

He finally goes to the optometrist by mid September, thinking that at least now he can stay at the computer for as long as he needs to without feeling his eyes are going to fall off. He goes expecting to be told that yes, his prescription has gone up, he's going to have to call Kirsten and let her know that he's getting himself new glasses and contacts, but it doesn't happen like that.

The guy smiles at him, changes lens after lens. It takes longer than it did the first time, to find a pair that actually allows Ryan to see anything other than just blurs of black in a white background that should be letters. God, Ryan, he tells himself, you're gonna end up blind before you're thirty.

But instead of giving Ryan the prescription, the guy says, "Do you have an ophthalmologist?"

Ryan shakes his head. "No, not really." He thinks about the doctor he was seeing back in Newport. "Back home, I think. I'm not sure if he was an ophthalmologist or not, though."

"Hmm. I'd rather you got an appointment."

He frowns. "What? Why?"

The guy's face doesn't give anything away, and Ryan frown. "Nothing, it's just better this way. Your eyes have worsened very quickly, and I'd rather he'd give you a more accurate prescription."

Ryan sighs, finally, and asks for a number of an ophthalmologist. He leaves the office, the guy telling him to try and get an appointment as soon as possible. Ryan tells himself he will, but when he arrives home, he realizes he has a lab report to get done, and the call gets pushed back.

*****

It's only after finals -- the holidays over and he's back in Berkeley for the spring semester in early January -- that Ryan has the time to sigh, lean back in his bed, and remember that his headache has become a constant reminder that he has to set up that appointment. He calls the number and schedules an appointment for two days later -- Thursday Janurary 15th, 2009 -- and hangs up.

Ryan had expected that the appointment would go like the ones he had before. A couple of questions, going over lenses, finding one that fit and then leaving with the new prescription. It didn't go like that.

He gets eye drops that dilate his eyes, his retinas get photographed, and blood required for other exams he doesn't understand. It's not until he's seated before the doctor and hears her words and all he can do is blink and look at her and feel himself go cold.

"Retinitis pigmentosa," Dr. McKay says, giving him a small smile. She has blue eyes and an easy demeanor, but he can't help but tighten his hold on the armrests of the chair.

"What?"

The answer comes in chopped words, brief sentences, at least that Ryan hears. Progressive disease, inherited eye disease that affects the retina, no cure as of now, gradual degeneration of the rods and cones, loss of peripheral vision and photosensitivity.

Ryan has to frown, think back, to notice that his eyes hurt from the changes of the dimly lit classroom to the outside Davis Hall, that he can't quite see what's behind his shoulders any more. Can barely even see the edge of his shoulders as it is.

"But it'll get better, right?" Ryan asks, his voice trembling, leaning forward on his seat, cutting her off mid sentence. "I mean, I can take pills or get eye drops or surgery or whatever--"

"There's no cure for RP, no, but it has been identified that a first step in managing it can be certain doses of vitamin A, which have been found to slightly slow the progression of RP in some individuals."

"In some individuals?" Ryan blinks, his headache coming back full force, his pulse hammering against his temples. "You mean, it doesn't always work?"

"No, I'm sorry, it doesn't."

"And there's nothing I can do?" His voice has a frantic edge to it, his tone lowering at the last word.

She gives him a sad smile. "Your difficulty to adjust either dark or dimly lit rooms will increase, as if you were entering a dark movie theatre on a bright, sunny day. Also, the field of vision will continue to narrow as it degenerates."

He takes in a shaky breath, letting out slowly. "Will I end up blind?"

"The degree of visual loss between patients is variable, but it should give you enough time to adjust."

_adjust_

The word is like a slap on the face. After that, Ryan doesn't hear much. He waits outside the office, waiting for his eyes to be able to focus on something, for them to be able to see. The eye drops that dilate his eyes make them water, make them sting from the inside out and he has to wait in the waiting room for them to work once again, for them to let him see.

"Should I call you a cab?" The nurse asks him when he's being waiting there for over ten minutes. "Or maybe a friend, to pick you up?"

His jaw tightens and he can imagine Seth in a class right about now, hearing his cell phone ringing and because it's Ryan's ringtone, leaving the class to pick it up. He can see him in the hallway, walking down, slowly, phone pressed to his ear while Ryan tries to explain what he's dong in an ophthalmologist office and why he didn't talk about it before and how come he can't drive himself home.

Ryan shakes his head. "No, I'm fine. I'll just wait it out."

"Honey, I really think--"

"I'll wait it out, thanks." He snaps, his tone harsh, but it gets his point across. The nurse gives him a sad smile, a nod of her head before walking away from him. Walking away from him, exactly what he needs. And no, he's not calling Seth, because he really doesn't want to have that conversation with him, nor is he calling a cab, because then he'll have to come back for the Rover and that's even worse.

And so all he can do is tilt his head back, close his eyes, and not think about what was just said three doors down the hall, in a cold office, and how his fate was sealed with two words alone. 

It's two hours later, when his eyes have recuperated, that he arrives home and goes straight to his room and this is the first time he consciously notices that it takes him way too long for his eyes to adjust to the dark room that is his bedroom, the thick curtains pulled closed since morning. He blinks, and after long terse moments, he can see the shapes that are his bed.

Ryan lies down on his bed and glances around him, seeing the shapes of his dresser, and nightstand, before closing his eyes shut, trying to go over what the doctor told him.

When Seth arrives after class that afternoon and asks Ryan what he wants for takeout, Ryan shrugs it off, tells Seth that he won't be eating dinner, he's not hungry. Seth asks what's wrong and Ryan's too chicken shit to tell him the truth.

"The flu," Ryan lies through his teeth. "I'm fine, I'll just sleep it off."

Seth nods, pats Ryan's shoulder, and leaves the bedroom.

Ryan doesn't sleep that night.

*****

The following days, Ryan tries to find out as much as possible about retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. He learned about Usher syndrome, which comes with hearing loss, a two for one kind of package. It's a rare condition, and as far as research goes, it says that hearing loss should have come first.

Which means that he might not have it. Might not.

He won't know anything for sure until his lab work comes back, and he meets with Dr. McKay in a couple of weeks. All of the internet pages he finds say the same thing, that both symptoms could worsen over the span of years, or quicker than that. That some people with retinal degeneration may become blind but most retain limited residual vision though they still may declared legally blind. In the end, what he knows isn't much.

He's going blind, little by little and that's a knowledge he can't change, can't put out of his mind for more than mere minutes at a time.

Still, he might be going blind, but it's not going to happen over night. _It's not going to happen over night_ becomes almost like a mantra to Ryan.

*****

It's late February of 2009, a month and a half after the first diagnosis. Five weeks since Dr. McKay confirmed that it was retinitis pigmentosa. _I'm so sorry, we can start looking at treatments and there are centers I can put you in touch with, so you start the adjustment process._ It's three weeks to be exact, since the first time his heart clenched and he felt fear as he had never felt before, when his professor of Structural Analysis turned off the lights in the classroom and turned on the projector.

All Ryan can see for a moment is darkness around him, and he blinks, scared all of a sudden. It's not going to happen overnight, he tells himself, whispers under his breath, even as his left hand reaches out to the edge of his table and clutches it as hard as he can.

He hears people talking around him. Eve saying something under her breath and Charlie chuckling and he thinks he can hear Tatiana giggling, but he's not sure. The professor, Ryan assumes, starts with the slides, because the room falls silent and Ryan can only clutch the edge of the table even tighter.

"The flexibility method."

A pause, in which every student gets out his notebooks and pens. Ryan sits there, his shoulders set, his lips pressed into a thin line. His knuckles start to hurt, but he doesn't say a word -- can only bite the inside of his cheek as he breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth. Eve, who is sitting to his right, doesn't say a word about him not taking notes.

_it's not going to happen over night_

Still, there's nothing but darkness around him. The professor continues with the explanation, people writing down around him, and he doesn't even dare to reach for his pen, afraid he'll miss and his notebook will fall down and then everyone will know that he can't see a fucking thing.

He breathes in and out, and when the professor reaches the explanation of the flexibility matrix he blinks and he can see the white edges of the projection over the whiteboard. He breathes in again, slowly, and when he breathes out, he can almost see the numbers and the letters of the definition. Two minutes later, he can start to copy down what is being said.

Eve nudges him on the side, and Ryan turns around, blinking, thinking he can see her face but not being sure. "God, I hate this subject."

Ryan smiles, a tight smile that hurts his cheeks and his chest and his very lungs, and shrugs. "Yeah. I know."

When the class is done and he starts piling everything into his bag, the lights in the back of the classroom are turned on. There's not much change in the illumination, but it's enough for his eyes to take a minute to adjust to the change. He knows his friends and he knows they will wait, and he can't have that. God, he can't have that.

So, still sitting, he takes out his cell phone and he can hear Tatiana asking, "Hey, Ryan. Lets go."

He gives a smile on the general direction of where he thinks they might be, and shrugs. "Gotta make a call. You get going, I'll meet you there."

Eve chuckles, like she always does. "Yeah, sure. We'll save you a seat. Hurry up."

He nods, head down, thinking he should be able to see his cell phone in his hands, his hands, his lap, anything and everything, and waits until he can hear the doors of the classroom closing after his fingers. After that, he knows he's all alone in the room. And a heartbeat after that, he can see the color of his hands, the way he's holding the cell phone so tight, his knuckles start to hurt all over again.

He walks out of the classroom and it's everything all over again.

The sun shines brightly over him and it's too much, too bright, too fast. He grimaces, hand going over his eyes as they sting from the sudden brightness and he can't see anything but spots of light dancing under his closed eyelids. He breathes in, heavily, his eyes watering and he bites his lower lip to keep himself calm and collected. His hands tighten around the strap of his bag that lies across his chest and he takes a step back until he can feel the wall against his back. 

There are students moving from one classroom to the other, and he can hear it clearly, but all he can see is darkness around him, pitch black and all he can feel is the prickling of his eyes and the anger building up inside him. He decides not to take notice of the fear that grips as tight as an iron fist around his throat.

I'm running out of time, he can't help but think. I'm running out of fucking time.

His breathing is hard and heavy through his lips as he lets out a long sigh. He's running out of time, and it's like sand he can feel slipping through his fingers.

He stands there with the wall against his back, his eyes closed and his hands gripping his bag for minutes that feel like hours until his eyes decide to grace him with sight and it's only then that he can finally push himself off the wall, put on his prescription glasses and walk to his next class.

*****

It's the third day of March 2009, a Tuesday, when Seth remembers that Ryan has been doing the laundry for the past month when they were supposed to alternate weeks. He sighs, noticing that he's quickly running out of clean underwear and figures he can do the laundry this one time, right?

He picks up all of his dirty clothes -- three jeans, about ten t-shirts, underwear he didn't even know he owned -- before going to Ryan's bedroom across the hall.

The apartment is small. Two bedrooms and a large bathroom at the end of the hallway. A small kitchen which they only use for the fridge and sink, and eating breakfast on the counter. The living room that Seth uses as his private study because half of what he has to do is read. There's a large table for Ryan to do all the math work he has to do for all the subjects he's taking this semester.

Seth walks into Ryan's bedroom, always cleaner than his own, and looks around for the dirty clothes in the hamper. There's a t-shirt on the floor from last night when Ryan arrived late because he had a study session with Tatiana and Eve and Claire, all of whom Seth knows and likes a lot, for some test later this week. Fluids something, Seth thinks. He picks up the shirt then goes to the basket, piling the clothes on the bed to separate the whites from the colors. At least that something he learned, after the horrible incident involving a blue sock. There are only two jeans and more t-shirts and when he's going over the pockets of a pair of dark blue jeans, his fingers touch a piece of paper.

Money, Seth can't help but think and if he's lucky, a fifty. He pulls his hand out and it's not money. It is a printed page from internet, the link in blue letters on the left hand corner towards the bottom. He blinks -- head tilted to the side -- he can't understand. He reads the words, but he cannot understand them. Medical Encyclopedia, according to the link, and it's the title that catches his eye.

Retinitis pigmentosa

It takes him a while to finish the reading, paper printed on both sides -- 

_retinitis pigmentosa commonly runs in families_

\-- and there are words he doesn't understand --

_as the disease progresses, peripheral vision is gradually lost_

\-- but mostly, Seth thinks, minutes later when he finishes reading it --

_may eventually lead to blindness_

\-- it has taken him this long, almost half an hour because --

_severe visual problems do not usually develop until early adulthood_

\-- it's hard for him to understand, to believe, that there's a reason for Ryan to have printed this from the internet and hidden in his back pocket of his jeans, other than the need to know this, to learn this, and not tell Seth.

So when he's done reading, when he's gone over the symptoms -- vision decreased at night or in reduced light; loss of peripheral vision; loss of central vision (in advanced cases) -- and the lack of treatment -- there is no effective treatment for this condition -- and he recognizes some of the signs of this disease, the suggestion to make an appointment with his ophthalmologist as soon as possible, that he can't help but think, Why would Rya--?

And the thought stops there, right there, mid word, because then it hits him, like water pouring over his face and body and soul and leaving him cold and almost empty.

He takes a step back, and another, and another, until he's leaning against the wall. He closes his eyes, hands clutching the page in his fingers, and falls down onto the floor because there's one thing he knows, and that's that Ryan will hide anything that he believes is personal, private, and this falls under that category.

_Ryan has retinitis pigmentosa_

The knowledge hits Seth in the chest, making him gasp, and it's on the edge of surprise and shock that all the pieces fall into place -- the headaches, the use of very dark sunglasses, the couple of times Ryan didn't answered his cell phone even though Seth knew he wasn't in class, the secrets and the shifting and the shaking of his head -- that he knows, _he knows_ , that Ryan has been lying to him by omission.

_Ryan has retinitis pigmentosa_

The second time he hears his mind say that, whispered with fear lacing the words--

may eventually lead to _blindness_

\-- Seth feels like his whole world has shifted on its axis and might never be the same again.


	2. ii.

Ryan sighs, walking out of the elevator slowly, his left hand reaching for the wall. He takes in a deep breath as he hears the elevator doors closing behind him. He turns around, touching his left shoulder to the wall. The apartment is down the hall, the second door to his right, but the shift in lighting has screwed up his eyes. He blinks, feeling them worthless, his left hand closing into a fist, nails digging into skin.

When his breathing calms and his heart isn't hammering in his chest, he blinks once again trying to focus on the hallway. He can see with difficulty, the colors dull and the light above dim. It's late, he knows it's almost seven and his eyes have been acting up all day and he has a fucking headache that makes him feel like his brain will ooze out of his nose. He grinds his jaw, his right hand closing into a fist and he pulls away from the wall and walks down the hallway.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven--

He doesn't know when he started, if he'll ever stop

\-- eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen--

but counting his paces in familiar places, from the elevator to the door, from his door to the bathroom, from the living room to the kitchen, makes him feel like he knows his way, like he's finding himself once again.

It's seventeen to the door and he pauses before it. It's dark brown wood and he touches it with his fingers, soft and sturdy at the same time, and it feels weird, to be doing this. He never has before, has never cared how the door felt to him, but it's important now, all of a sudden, it's so fucking important his throat seems to close up.

He shakes his head, getting his keys out of his pocket, slowly, like he has all the time in the world

_I'm running out of time--_

even though he knows better. He has another appointment with Dr. McKay later this week, to get another look at his eyes. Ryan couldn't help but call her last Friday when it took him a good half a minute for his eyes to adjust to the light outside the classroom. He had clenched his jaw so tight, his molars and cheek had hurt for the rest of the afternoon.

It's happening, he tells himself as he turns around the key and unlocks the door. It's happening and there's no stopping it now. 

There never was, actually, there never was any stopping of this, but the doctor herself had said that the time span would vary, but he'd have time. And two months of time is just not fucking enough.

He shields his eyes with his hand, but the change in light again, leaves him breathless for a moment. The kitchen and living room are in darkness and for him, they might as well have cut off his eyes, for all the fuck he sees. It's nothing but pitch black, and his right hand is shaking with fear as he pulls the door closed behind him. 

Seth should be here, he thinks, because it's Tuesday and Seth only has class until four on Tuesdays. He sighs looking around, blinking furiously, wishing his eyes would work. He wishes this wasn't happening. 

Then there's light, in the corner of what peripheral vision he still has, bright and unexpected and it feels like trying to see the sun with bare eyes, and it hurts, all of a sudden, it hurts. He grimaces, turning around, covering his eyes with his hand.

"Ryan? Dude, you okay?"

He nods, his throat tight for a second at hearing Seth and knowing Seth's seeing him like this – weak and blind. He tries to face Seth steadily, on his own two feet -- stoic, like that doesn't fit. He blinks, looking at Seth looking back at him, even though Seth is nothing more than dark shape in an otherwise bright background.

"Yeah, yeah," Ryan says, a little breathless, "just caught me by surprise."

Ryan looks around after a moment, when his eyes start working again and he can see the windows on the other side of the living room letting in dim light, the curtains wide open. He can almost imagine Seth, sitting on the couch, illuminated by the light from the outside as darkness falls around him.

His grip on his the strap of his bag tightens and he moves past Seth and to his bedroom, noticing that there's the laundry basket in the corner before the hallway. He frowns. He should have done laundry this weekend, but the light in the laundry room hurts his eyes too much and he had that paper to give in yesterday and he knew that if he got a headache then he'd never finish the paper.

It's the hand on his elbow that stops Ryan from making his way down the hallway and to the safety of his bedroom. It's that hand that makes Ryan turn around and face Seth, blinking, and Seth's so close he can see sadness in the brown eyes. 

"I think we need to talk."

Seth's voice drops, matching his eyes, letting Ryan know that something's wrong. It's Seth's voice that makes Ryan's heart lodge in his throat for a second before letting out a long sigh.

"Seth," Ryan says with a small smile, a shake of his head. "I'm tired. I had one hell of a fucking day and whatever it is--"

His words die in his throat along with the bitching he was gonna start, when Seth's left hand comes from behind him and shows Ryan a page he recognizes. From this angle, from the way Seth's clutching at the page, wrinkled and almost torn in one corner, Ryan can only see

_initis pigm_

in bold letters, but that's enough for words to turn meaningless and his breathing to stop. Nightmares have never felt this real.

They don't say anything for a moment, Ryan can't, at least. He can barely even make himself breathe, let alone speak. He sighs, and Seth lets go of his elbow. He feels something cold coiling into him, slowly, as if afraid of what this could mean. 

_he knows_

And of course Seth knows, because Seth might be many things, many things, but stupid he is not. At least, most days.

Ryan wants to speak up, to open his mouth and say something, start with an apology for not coming clean with this, when it was so obvious that this wasn't something he could sweep under the rug. But how could Ryan start that conversation? How does Ryan open his mouth and say, yes, I'm going blind. Right in this fucking moment, Seth.

He hears a sound and for a moment he thinks it comes from the apartment, the neighbor, and then he recognizes it as a whimper, low and barely there. Ryan wonders if it's coming from Seth. And then, when Ryan breathes out and his throat makes that same sound, he knows it's coming from inside him.

"Seth--"

When he looks up, Seth's looking at him, eyes bright. This close, even without his glasses, Ryan can recognize what Seth's feeling. His breath catches in his throat and he reminds himself that soon he won't be able to tell the different shades of brown in Seth's eyes. Even now, the colors seem dim and hollow, not as bright as Ryan remembers them. He takes in a shaky breath, and something inside him breaks because Seth has always been an open book to him, and Ryan only needs to open his eyes and see Seth to know what the boy is thinking.

"Seth--"

The words end there because then Seth has his arms around Ryan, holding on tight, almost hurting him, and Ryan can only sigh. Seth breathes in, seems to want to say something as well, but this time the whimper is loud in the otherwise silent room and that breath turns into a sob and his arms tighten around Ryan even more.

Ryan nods, trying his best to hug Seth back, even with his arms pinned to the sides of his body. "It's okay," he whispers, not knowing what else to say, how else to explain. "It's--"

_"Don't."_

Ryan sighs, hearing the strength in Seth's only word, and nods, knowing Seth's right. Those are lies, coming from his lips, lies neither of them need.

Ryan has no idea how long they stand there, half hugging, half just breathing, but when they do pull apart, it's nothing but darkness around him, the light coming from the small lamp on the living room seeming to blink in and out, and Ryan has to close his eyes as his head starts to pound.

There's Seth's hand on his shoulder once again, nothing but a slight touch, but it's enough. For Ryan, it's more than enough, and it feels better, in a way, to know that he doesn't have to hide this from Seth anymore.

*****

_Maybe there's something we can do_

Ryan sighs, craning his neck to the right, then the left, and hearing something pop just under his nape. 

_some doctor we can talk to. There has to be a specialist somewhere, Ryan, fuck, you can't just give up_

There's nothing to give up, Ryan can remember himself saying, as he watched Seth pace the small living room from one end to the other. There's nothing to do, Seth. Really. I know. I've researched.

_Yeah, well, maybe you didn't research enough._

And yes, he can understand Seth's frustration, he has felt it himself, but right now, that's not what he needs. When he blinks and focuses his eyes on the whiteboard, the projection from today's class on top, he notices that he's a good page behind. He grumbles under his breath and starts copying as fast as he can. After another page, he gives up, and nudges Tatiana on the side and asks her for her notes.

Not even five minutes later, the professor says that that's enough for today, study up until page 115 for Friday's test, kids, come on, I really want you all to pass the subject.

The projector is turned off, the lights in the room are turned on and then Ryan's world turns black for long moments. He can hear Tatiana moving around, putting her things back in her bag probably, but he only sits with his lips pressed in a thin line.

He hears Tatiana asking the guy who was sitting on her other side, Walter, about the class, about something Ryan doesn't pay attention to. He blinks and takes a deep breath and when he can feel the pain over his eyes lessening, he starts putting his books into his backpack, shoving them inside angrily.

"Hey."

It's the hand on his shoulder, the voice close by that takes him by surprise and one of his books fall landing with a loud sound that makes him jump.

He blinks, and slowly, his eyes having adjusted to the change in light. His peripheral vision has shortened, he reminds himself, to the point where he can't quite see the edge of his shoulders when he looks from the corner of his eyes. He looks up, and Seth's standing there, right before him, the book that had fallen in his hands, a small but sad smile on his lips.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Seth apologizes softly. 

Ryan shakes his head. It's a pointless apology, because lately all he can seem to be is startled.

"Hey, Seth."

"Hi, Tatiana."

The exchange is sharp and clear to Ryan, even though his eyes are tired and he can't see them very well. He turns to Tatiana, looking back at him with her eyes narrow and confusion in her face. But she shakes her head, shrugging as she does so. "I've got Fluids in ten minutes. See ya in Procedures, okay?"

"Sure," he says under his breath, watching her walk out of the classroom. He sighs, and turns back to his bag.

"You done?"

Ryan nods, not quite looking up from zipping his bag very slowly. When he looks at Seth, he still has the book in his hands and Ryan takes it from Seth before placing it in his bag.

"You free until four, right?"

It's Wednesday, and since his eleven to one Structural Analysis class is done, he doesn't have Construction Procedures until four. He really doesn't feel like going to that class since the professor likes projectors too and his head's hurting like a bitch already. "Yeah, but I might skip it."

Seth's tone changes in a second, and Ryan can almost see him bouncing on his step. "Oh, really?"

They walk out of the classroom and the bright spring light shining through thin clouds, reflected in the high windows of the hallway take him by surprise. His eyes sting, from the very inside out, and his hand moves to cover them, freezing in the spot as they stop working all together, nothing but darkness around him, pitch black, dark and dark and _dark_ and --

"Ryan? Dude?"

His breathing's loud in his ears, the very sound of his heart racing in his chest seems to silence everything around him, from the sound of students coming and going to Seth, saying something next to him.

"I'm fine," Ryan says through clenched teeth because this is the first time Seth has seen this happen, the first time it has happened with Seth next to him and Ryan doesn't have to hide it anymore. God, how in the world did he used to hide it? How in the world--? "Just-- just give me a sec, okay?"

He can't see Seth, but he knows Seth's nodding, next to him, just standing, waiting for Ryan to let him know when it's safe for them to move, when Ryan's eyes have decided to grace them with the ability to see, even as little as they can at the moment.

His breathing starts to quicken and he can feel his hands beginning to sweat when the seconds tick by and he doesn't count them, can't count them because if it's longer than a minute, he doesn't know how he'll cope with that. Still, seconds keep on passing by, and he doesn't know if they move too quick or too slow. All he can see is shades of light in his eyes. He blinks, frustrated beyond belief, with Seth standing next to him, and he clenches his jaw and--

Seth's hand on his elbow, fingers around the inside on the soft skin, and then Seth's forearm against his own and Seth's breath close to his ear.

"Ryan, are you--?"

"I'm fine," he says, whispering, and takes a step back. Seth follows easily, and he takes another and another, until he has the wall against his back. He seems to have found his axis again and he no longer feels as if he's floating in a sea of nothingness. "I'm fine," he repeats.

Seth doesn't answer, and it's only seconds before he can see the outline of Seth's eyes and there's no need for his eyes to be working properly to know there's concern in them. He sighs, and the hand around his forearm tightens.

"I'm not going to Procedures," he says after a moment, his voice tight and sharp.

"Okay. Sure." A pause, a small smile that barely reaches Seth's eyes. "Let's go home."

Ryan nods, following Seth down the hallway, and Seth's arm only moves from his forearm to the low on his back, never wavering, and Ryan can't help but feel like he's standing on solid ground, for the first time in a long time.

*****

Later that day, after Seth has blown his five afternoon British Authors class, they sit before the TV, not quite watching it. Just sitting there, together, not really thinking.

"We're gonna have to tell the parents."

It's not a question, it's barely even a statement, but Seth says it still, and it does seem to take the wind out of Ryan's lungs. He needs a minute for his brain cells to rearrange enough for him to be able to think, let alone speak.

"I know."

He knew he couldn't keep this secret for long, for longer than it was entirely necessary, but that doesn't mean he's willing to reveal it yet.

They'll know, his mind whispers. They'll know that something's wrong with you, something has always been wrong with you. It's the Atwood in you, Ryan. It's the fucking dirt under your fingernails, it's the shit in your fucking DNA code because you're fucked up, have been since birth, and now--

He shakes his head because whatever happens now will happen, and there's nothing he can do now to stop it. Nothing he can do, except wait and breathe and see what little he can see for as long as he has.

"We've got spring break coming up."

Ryan sighs, looking down at his hands in the dim light that comes from the TV and the lamp on the other side of the couch. Right, spring break, from the 23rd to the 28th, five days of doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying going to the beach. Now those days will be tainted with the fucking truth that Ryan Atwood has done it again, has found yet another way to fuck up everything he has, everything he has ever tried to get.

"I don't think I can--"

 _tell them_ , his mind whispers, but the words end there, because there's no need to finish that sentence. Seth knows, not for anything they have known each other so freaking long, goddamnit, at least long enough for the guy to know what the fuck Ryan's talking about.

"We have to tell them, Ryan. God--" Seth takes in a deep breath, and when it comes out, it sounds more like a whimper than a sigh. "We can't not tell them, you gotta know that, right? We can't not tell them."

And yes, he knows, thank you very much, Ryan thinks, but I'd like to pretend for just ten more minutes that next time I see your parents I'm not going to have to tell them that I'm going become a burden to them, okay?

Then again, Seth's hand is on his forearm, his thumb touching the inside of Ryan's elbow. His skin tingles under the touch. Seth has touched him more in the last two days than he has in the previous month. And Ryan can't quite deny it, lie to himself, and say that he doesn't like the attention.

"Ryan--"

He closes his eyes briefly. "We'll tell them," he says, cutting Seth's sentence off.

Just not now. Not yet. He wants, he needs this, the parents not knowing yet. And it might be stupid and it's the same reason he didn't tell Seth in the first place, because if he tells... He snorts, somewhere in the back of his throat, because it does sound stupid, but he thinks that if he tells them, it'll be more real. More real than right now, than the way he can't quite see his shoulders in his peripheral vision anymore, he doesn't how that could be possible. He can't tell them yet. He's clinging to this stupid idea, and he might even come to regret it later one, but right now, he can't. He can go and face them and tell them, when he's barely handling it himself.

He has to turn his head fully around to be able to see Seth's face, the outline of his cheekbones and the contour of lips. He blinks and looks at Seth in a blur of details because he's not wearing his glasses, they only seem to make his eyes hurt a bit worse. "We'll tell them."

Seth nods, his fingers tightening around his arm. "Yeah, okay."

Seth should let go now that the conversation has been done, and he should turn around and pay attention, or not pay attention, to the TV once again. But he does neither. Instead, he leans forward, barely an inch, and Ryan wouldn't know except that he can feel the air leaving Seth's lungs touching him on his cheek.

Seth reaches out with his right hand the one not holding onto Ryan tightly, and they fall to Ryan's cheekbone.

Ryan notices, in a way that he hasn't before, that Seth looks pained, as if this, whatever this is, might hurt him more than that it should hurt Ryan.

"Your eyes look the same," Seth breathes out, slowly and carefully, and Ryan closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again. Seth's fingertips move to the corner of Ryan's right eye, not quite touching, not needing to. "They look the same. I don't... how can they be different now?"

Ryan gives him a small smile, a sad smile, that he knows doesn't reach his eyes, and it doesn't matter now, because there's nothing that can explain that, that can make it better once again. "I don't know."

"It's the change of light, isn't it? I read--"

Ryan doesn't nod, too afraid to move because Seth's fingers fall from his eyes, to his temple, his cheek, but it's the silence that answers. "It's like walking into a dark room from a bright morning. Everything's dark-- for a moment. It just--" He sighs, not knowing how to phrase this. "My eyes take longer in getting used to the change."

"And one day, they won't."

Ryan makes a low sound in the back of his throat, something between a whimper and a sob, but it's the truth. He turns his face away, Seth's hand falling from his cheek. Ryan hasn't been able to say aloud, not even to himself. And it seems to fit that it's Seth who says it to Ryan, because words have always come easier to Seth. "Yes."

And here lies the difference, Ryan recognizes. This place he has been living in for the last two months, this private hell is not just his any longer. Now Seth's hereto help him, or at least keep him company, and Ryan has to admit to himself that in those months he never felt more alone.

"How could I not know?"

Seth's not asking him, Ryan knows, Seth's asking himself. 

Seth sighs, a soft and painful sound to Ryan's ears. "How is it possible that this was happening and I didn't know? God, Ryan, how could I have been so bl--?"

Seth's words end there, and Ryan gives him a rueful smile. "I'm not going to take it personally, if you say blind, Seth." Seth doesn't say anything, but he shakes his head once, a hard shake, and Ryan sighs, not knowing what else to do. He pauses, thinking about Seth's question. "I didn't want you to know, so I hid it."

Seth snorts, not mad but only saddened. "You did one hell of a job."

And it wasn't easy. It could have very well been one of the most difficult things Ryan has ever done, to stand before Seth and look at him in the eye and convince himself that he wasn't seeing the world in blotches and shades of blur. It might have almost have cost him what little sense of self Ryan had.

There might be more left to say, knowledge to be taken to heart and let go, but today is not that day. Seth sighs once again, reaching to touch Ryan's eyebrow briefly, his temple and cheekbone, before falling to his side, and Ryan can't help but notice that the absence leaves him somewhat empty.

They both turn around and face the TV, and say nothing, as darkness falls on everything in its path, more so for Ryan than for Seth.

*****

There are classes that are easy, easier to handle, and Ryan has a predilection for them above the rest. Difficulty in tests or papers or projects notwithstanding, it's a matter of which professor uses the old projector, the one that requires the transparent slides, or PowerPoint. PowerPoint is better, by far, as the room doesn't need to be entirely dark for the numbers and letters to be seen, which of course means it takes less time for his eyes to adjust.

Adjust. Ryan has grown to hate that word in a way, because adjusting to what feels like changes every day, in every minute, has turned his life from easy and comfortable to harsh and problematic.

Railroads is a good class, all things considered. They don't have weekly tests, nor papers to give in, only lab reports. Those are easy since it means filling data in up to his neck. The class ends when the hour has run its course even though the presentation has not been finished. What once filled the whole pull down screen is nothing more than a recount of all the slides in the file and Ryan's eyes only take a moment for him to adjust.

He's wearing his contacts, even though it makes his eyes and head hurt a bit, because if he doesn't, everything is just a blur and blotches of color and he can't handle that now. When he looks up, he see Seth's shadow under the frame of the door before someone leaves the classroom and Seth takes that as his cue to walk in.

"Hey," Seth says, a smile on his lips, having noticed obviously, that Ryan saw him there.

Ryan grins, not being able to do anything but. "Hey."

Seth greets Tatiana and Claire, before turning to look at Ryan. "Good class?"

Ryan doesn't know if that question has to do with the class itself or his eyes during the class, or maybe even a little of both them.

Still, he answers, shrugging as he does so. "It was fine." And just like the question, Ryan's not sure his answer refers to the class alone.

Tatiana and Claire have stopped waiting for him. Tatiana grins, Claire nudging her on the side, before she jerks her head toward the door, and they leave without another word. 

Seth stands while Ryan finishes putting everything in his bag before sliding it over his head and draping it across his chest. With something akin to apprehension, which has become second to breathing Ryan makes his way to the door.

There are no unchangeable truths, not anymore, at least not concerning his eyes. One day he can walk outside and blink and only take two deep breaths before his eyes are working fine, even if they sting with the aftershock. Others, he can walk outside and feel nothing but fear gripping his throat tight. He'd stumble back then until he has a wall against his back, enough to give him a sense of direction in the ever increasing darkness that seems to become his world. And there are others, when his eyes seem to be at their weakest, when even though he can see, after seconds have long ago ticked by, they sting with such force that they are worthless, making his head pound with pain and tiredness in his very pores.

It's the not knowing, the difference in one minute to the next, very much like the wind blowing at his face as he steps outside. He has to place one hand over his eyes to shelter them against it. It's darkness right now, darkness and the fear again gripping his heart in an iron fist and when he takes the first step back, there's a hand on his forearm, tight and unrelenting.

Ryan half turns around, wanting to see Seth's face, to see what he's saying with his eyes, what can't be voiced, but there's nothing but black and black and more black in his eyes that aren't even worth the muscle they hold. He can feel his eyes narrow with frustration and he clenches his jaw. "Seth--"

The hand tightening on his forearm, so tight for a second that it hurts. "It's okay," Seth says, whispers, against Ryan's left ear and the breath warm on skin makes him shudder. "It's okay. I've got you."

Ryan breathes in and out until he can feel his center returning, his axis finding its way into his body and he knows which way is up and which one is down, and he can stand, even if not against a wall, and wait. He can wait, because Seth's there, and if he were to fall, if he were to fall, Seth will catch him.

*****

There are things he needs to get done, books that he needs to read for papers that need to be finished, and he knows this, he really does, it's just a matter of him getting over this thing that has taken over his brain and to be able to actually think about something other than retinitis pigmentosa.

RETINITIS PIGMENTOSA

Seth can imagine the words, in big bold letters, in the top of the page that changed his present, less than two weeks ago. It has changed his very world, and he knows with a painful certainty that darkness will one day cover Ryan's own and not let go. 

He swallows thickly and can't help but remember Ryan yesterday, walking out of the classroom. He remembers the tightness in his features, the crinkles around the corners of eyes, the way his hand had clenched into a fist and his lips pursed into a thin line. He'd do anything to take that back, to be able to change it, to take a piece of his DNA and switch it for the Atwood in Ryan's gene pool.

We have to tell them, he remembers his words. And they have to be able to put everything into words, when they seem to be running out of them. God, how in the world could Ryan have hidden that? How could he--?

Seth snorts, a sad and frustrated sound in the back of his throat. They've known each other for so very long so Seth should have known something when Ryan kept going places and wouldn't tell Seth, no matter how much he pushed. Though he didn't push much, but—

Fuck.

A hard shake of his head, nothing but anger inside him. Anger at himself, for not noticing, at fate for being so unfair to Ryan, at Dawn for not choosing bed partners better, at the very air he breathes and the muscles in his corneas that work--

The apartment door opens harshly and is slammed closed. Seth looks up, watching Ryan throw his messenger bag on top of the kitchen counter before pausing by the island that divides the kitchen and the living room. Seth notices the way Ryan stands up, shoulders slumped slightly, left hand gripping tightly the edge of the island as his right one pinches the bridge of his nose.

Not only a headache, Seth can see as he stands up, letting the book on his lap fall down onto the couch, but also his eyes, the way Ryan's holding onto that island as if for dear life. Can't see anything, probably, vertigo maybe, if things are too bad.

Seth rushes to Ryan's side, catching Ryan by the elbow before Ryan pulls away with a grimace.

"Ryan--"

"Don't touch me."

Seth gasps, as if burned. "Ryan?"

"Don't you fucking touch me," Ryan hisses through his teeth, taking a step past Seth and into the living room. But his feet touch the edge of the carpet and it might have been the change in his footing, Seth doesn't know, but Ryan stumbles forward, hand trying to catch his fall. His hand falls onto the back of the couch, where Seth had placed three books when he walked in and they fall to the floor, over his backpack, and something inside shatters in the silent room.

"Ryan, damn it," Seth says, trying to get a hold of Ryan but Ryan shakes his head, taking another step away from Seth, and Ryan's eyes must not have gotten used to the change of light yet because he can hear the loud crack of Ryan's shin against the center table.

" _Fuck--_ "

Seth watches with pain and fear as Ryan tries to take a step back, step around, anywhere, and hits the edge of the armchair. Seth can feel despair taking hold of him, tears in his eyes, and he reaches forward with more conviction this time, holding onto Ryan's arm so tight he must be leaving bruises. "Ryan, _please--_ "

"Let go of me!"

"Ryan--"

"Leave me the fuck _alone_!"

"Stop it, you're gonna hurt yourself."

But it doesn't matter what Seth says because Ryan still wants to get away from him, not giving his eyes the time to adjust. Seth fears this time Ryan might get really hurt, and he places both hands on Ryan's forearms and holds on with everything he has.

Ryan pants, breathing harshly, and after a moment he shakes his head and Seth waits only a second before letting him go. This time, when Ryan takes a step, it's slow and controlled, and it seems his eyes have finally adjusted, because he sits down heavily on the couch without hurting himself in the process.

"What happened?" Seth asks, his head tilted to the side, his eyes following Ryan's every move.

"I'm fine."

Seth snorts, and if it hadn't been for little display of less than controlled nature that Ryan always seems to exude, Seth might have believed him. "Right, sure, and you just forgot your way around the apartment because it's fun? Right. Whatever, just tell me what happened?"

"Nothing."

"Damn it, Ryan." He sighs, closing his eyes for a second, and he opens them, he notices the way Ryan's looking out the window and to the sky, darkening slowly as the sun starts setting. No wonder the change in light in the darkening hallway to the bright living room, at least until a minute ago, totally threw Ryan off.

He reaches out slowly, making sure Ryan knows he's going to be touched, and then his heart forgets how to beat in his chest for a moment when he remembers that Ryan's slowly losing peripheral vision. Ryan wouldn't know Seth's hand is close to his shoulder, unless Seth was standing right in front of him.

"Ryan," Seth can only whisper, and he believes Ryan knows him enough to see this coming. When his hand does touch Ryan's shoulder, Ryan only stiffens under his touch for a moment before the muscle relaxes.

They don't say anything, Seth too afraid to break the spell, but then Ryan breathes in loudly and Seth lets his hand drop and thinks, well, this is as good a cue as he's ever going to get. 

"Talk to me."

"I broke a pictometer."

"A what?" Seth blinks, more confused than before. He goes over Ryan's schedule quickly in his head and remembers he had Mechanic of Soils lab just four hours ago. He wanted to pick Ryan up, but Ryan refused, said he could take a cab because Seth was supposed to be doing his paper. Oh, fuck. "What is that? How--?"

"It's this glass thing that you put soil in, for it to sediment." Ryan sighs, shaking his head once. "I broke it against a hydrometer, which, of course, also fucking broke."

"Okay, okay. But how did you--?"

"I didn't see Charles coming around." Ryan says with a grimace, an anger and frustration in his face that Seth isn't sure he's ever seen before. "I didn't see him."

"Oh, Ryan--"

Ryan pulls away, not moving from the couch, but jerking his right arm away, as if certain Seth was going to touch him again. Well, he was, Seth sighs, watching Ryan turn his face away from him.

"Ryan--"

"Don't. Just--" Ryan shakes his head once, a hard shake and his lips are pressed even tighter against one another. "Just _don't_."

Seth nods, though he doesn't know if Ryan can see him, or wants to see him, so he just sits there, next to Ryan, not saying anything -- which really, really costs him -- and not touching him, which turns out to take more out of Seth than he would have thought possible. He just sits, and figures, when Ryan wants to talk about it -- fat chance but one can't lose hope -- then he's going to be right here, sitting, waiting. He's going to be right here, no matter how long it freaking takes.

*****

The last rays of light go away slowly, around them, and it's Seth the one who stands up from the couch to see what they can have for dinner, which is pretty much nothing. He orders Thai takeout, because he knows Ryan likes Thai and right now Ryan's not about to agree or disagree. It's only when he has finished the two chapters of the book he was supposed to be reading while waiting for Ryan to arrive, paid the delivery guy and putting the containers in the kitchen island that Ryan stands up slowly, almost doubtfully. Seth has to bite down on his lower lip to not to go to Ryan's side and help.

He can do it, Seth tells himself. He can do it. He has lived here for two years and not once have they moved anything mom put in here after the summer of 2007. Ryan knows his way around this place with his eyes closed and the lights off, so he doesn't need my help.

And if he does, well, Seth can always rush to his side as fast as humanly possible.

Ryan stands up almost wobbly, but once he's moved away from the couch and he turns around, he makes his way to the kitchen with certainty, not once doubting himself, and Seth's certain his eyes are feeling better now. They sit at the table, Seth not hungry but knowing he has to eat, and watches Ryan from the corner of his eyes, only pushing his food around the plate.

"I didn't see him."

It's Ryan who breaks the silence, and that surprises Seth the most. Not the words, the admission, but that Ryan is actually volunteering personal information. 

Ryan lifts his eyes from his plate and when he meets Seth, for a moment, a second, it feels like Ryan's not looking at him but past him, through him. But then the second is gone and the coldness around him seeps into the air, like condensing breath, and Ryan looks right at him.

He shrugs, slowly, tiredly. "I didn't see him."

Seth holds on his breath, worried that if he so much as sighs, Ryan might not say another word.

"I was drawing the air out of the pictometer, and just swirling it for the thing to work, and when I'm done I turn around--" Ryan pauses, eyes narrowing, darkening. "I just turned around and then Charles was there and we crashed against one another and then both the pictometer and the hydrometer he was holding fell down." He shrugs, his voice low. "It was my fault, I know. I should have-- I should have been able to see him." Another pause, in which Ryan glances at Seth for only a second before looking down at his hands. "I told him not to worry, I'd pay for them both. I didn't want him making a big scene, I just wanted--"

And Seth can hear the words not said there, right there.

_I just wanted to forget it happened. I didn't want him to wonder why I didn't see him. I didn't want him to know. I didn't want anyone to know._

There's silence there, thick and heavy around them, until finally, Ryan sighs, his voice so low, Seth can barely hear him. In his mind, Seth completes the half heard sounds and translates them into words. "I didn't see him."

Seth doesn't know what to say to that. What does one say to that? "How bad is it now?"

Ryan doesn't answer for a moment, a long and almost heavy moment, before he sighs and whispers, "bad."

"How bad?"

Ryan grimaces, a shake of his head, before his voice lowers even more. "I can't see my shoulders anymore."

Seth can't help but close his eyes before turning to look at Ryan not looking at his plate, but down at his hands, as if pained. "We have to go to that ophthalmologist of yours." His voice sounds rough, too deep, and he clears his throat. "We have to talk with her--"

"I'm gonna call her tomorrow."

It's the right thing to say but there's a tangible exasperation to the reality Ryan has to face now. He's agreeing, Seth knows, because he doesn't have any other choice.

Seth wants to ask Ryan about telling the parents, about maybe just calling them and telling them or asking them to fly here and telling them. But he falls quiet because he knows Ryan, and he knows Ryan doesn't deal well with pressure, or expectations. Last time they tried to help him cope with something -- summer of 2006, graduation night, Marissa, the car -- Ryan ended up leaving the house and taking a beating for pleasure, so Seth's not going to risk that now.

And Seth knows Ryan, knows him enough to go all detective on him, and he keeps coming up with the same answer. And it doesn't make sense, and he's supposed to be the one that doesn't make sense, not Ryan. So he doesn't know why it feels like Ryan's pretending everything is fine as long as they don't tell the parents. It makes no sense, because things aren't fine and not telling them isn't going to help that.

But this is Ryan, and Seth has learned when to keep his mouth shut when it comes down to Ryan.

A pause, a breath, and Seth wonders when it's safe to say this, and realizes it might never be. "I want to go with you."

Ryan looks up at that, eyes blinking and Seth can see the ocean in them, can see Ryan laughing, head thrown back against the base of the couch when they used to sit on the floor; he can see Ryan on the catamaran, propped up by his hands, grinning; he can see Ryan in the chair in his small desk in his bedroom, a shake of his head; he can see Ryan on his bike, Seth on his skateboard, making their way down the pier; he can see Ryan, and he can't help but wonder if Ryan can see him.

"I really want to go with you." Seth's voice is thick and low, and he's certain he can hear the tears in his tone.

Ryan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's tired beyond words, beyond understanding. He's so tired Seth wonders if it's something that one can move past, that can be slept off, that can be forgotten.

"Okay," Ryan says with a finality that Seth feels in his very bones.

"Okay."

They don't talk about it after that.

*****

A week later, they've already gone to see Dr. McKay -- _it's progressing faster than I had anticipated_ \-- and that day Ryan arrived home to lock himself in his bedroom, he keeps on pretending he can do this, he can deal with this. He can _handle_ it.

He grits his teeth as he walks out of Mechanics of Fluids, hands tight around the strap of his satchel. Tatiana's with him, shoulder against his, and it's her hand on his forearm that stops him before taking a step back until he can feel the wall against his back.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?"

His eyes sting and he can feel the beginnings of a headache in between his eyebrows. He can't see shit, not for a second, and there's a bubble of panic in his throat that doesn't make it way to his mouth out of sheer will.

"Nothing," he says with as much control as he can manage. Seth has a late class, otherwise he'd be here, picking him up, driving him home. "I was just--"

"You were just going to come with me to look for Eve's birthday present, right?"

Ryan blinks. Eve? Birthday. Right. Ryan's own birthday was last week, fell on a Thursday. Everyone wanted to go out, do something, but all Ryan wanted was to hide in his house, sit on the couch, Seth by his side, play a few games while they still can. They were supposed to go to see the parents that week, and as much as Ryan would have liked -- they are the Cohens, the Cohens, the Cohens -- he didn't think he could face Kirsten and not tell her, not let it all show in his face. So he didn't. He said he had papers to give in Monday morning, tests for which to study. They understood, of course, because that's how they are, and it hurt Ryan even more for lying to them.

It's only Tuesday and Eve's birthday is this Saturday, 28th, but spring break starts on Friday, so she'll end up spending her birthday with Barbara and Claire and Emily at wherever it is they are going, truth be told. He should at least get her something.

"What are you getting her?"

He turns to look at Tatiana, his eyes blinking and he can see the shadows her silhouette casts. He takes in a deep breath and blinks again and his eyes adjust slowly and he can see her smile, her hand around his forearm and pulling him down the hallway. "Well, I'm sure we can find her something cool."

*****

Tatiana doesn't believe in buying anything that won't make the person bounce with happiness. Maybe that's the reason why Ryan now owns a first edition _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, Volume I_ , by Edgar Allan Poe, of 1940, which contains "The Fall of the House of Usher". He doesn't even want to know how much it cost, even though he knows Tatiana has no problem spending Patrick's money. "My money, his money, our money. We're practically married," she says. Still, it's a first edition. He wonders if it should be in a museum or something.

He likes his present, but it can't stop being bittersweet thinking about it now. He wonders if he'll be able to finish it before... _before_. If he'll manage a second read. If he'll get a third one. He wonders when it will all come tumbling down around him and the book will be nothing but silent printings in a page that he can't read, can't find with his fingers, and it makes his throat ache and his chest cold, but this is him now, this is his reality, and he has to live with that.

They walk down the aisles of the bookshop -- apparently, Tatiana has a thing for giving people books -- and Ryan tries to remember if he ever heard Eve mention a favorite author.

He can feel the headache pounding in between his temples, the bright light of the bookshop hurting his eyes. He leans against one of the long wooden shelves, closing his eyes tight, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he opens them, something crystal clear and translucent catches his eyes. He frowns, making his way down the aisle to the small table where a chess set sits. The chess set is amazing, of course, crystal clear and cut as a diamond, but it's the hourglass that seems to draw his attention.

The base and the top are made of crystal as well, and he reaches with a tentative hand, but stops himself before touching it. This is an antique and collectibles place, maybe from where Tatiana bought his own gift, and he can almost see how expensive this thing must be.

"Do you like it?"

He looks over his shoulder, a young lady, smiling at him. He nods. "Yeah." He has no idea why, he's not the one to buy things just for the hell of it, but he wants this piece of time in his hands, sands through his fingers. "How much?"

"Oh, one hundred and eighty five dollars. It's from the early nineteen hundreds. It's made from one blow of crystal, cut with--"

But he doesn't care about it, he doesn't care about its history at all. He picks it up, feeling it feeble and resilient in his hands at the same time, nothing but time in his fingers. He swallows past the tightness in his throat and nods. "I'll take it," he says, holding it in his left hand while he reaches for his wallet with his right one.

"We'll give you an authenticity certificate."

"Yeah, sure." Whatever. He looks at it once again before pulling out his Platinum AmEx. "Could you put it in a box? I wouldn't want it to--"

"Of course, sir, no problem."

He smiles at the girl before a hand falls on his shoulder. Not Seth by a long shot. He turns to look at Tatiana, grinning from ear to ear. "What did you find?" Ryan asks, with a smile on his face.

She bounces on her feet, showing him a leather book on her hands. "Emily Dickinson. Selected Poems. Second edition, but it's in perfect condition and freaking amazing, really. 1924." She shrugs. "Eve has a thing for poetry."

Ryan nods. "Joint present?"

"Sure. I'll tell the woman to wrap it up."

*****

By the time Seth arrives, Ryan's already made stir fry, not really in the mood for more than a quick something. He places the plates on the kitchen table, and they sit to eat almost silently before Seth starts talking about the book he has to read for British Author's class and Ryan mentions that Tatiana and him went to get Eve something for her birthday.

Ryan jerks his head in direction of the bookcase in the den, the crystal hourglass sitting in between two silver frames.

Seth frowns, standing up and making his way to the den. Ryan watches him with tired eyes, something tight in his throat. He won't understand, he thinks, he won't understand. He'll mock. He'll think I'm depressed. He'll read too much into it or not enough. He'll--

"Hourglass?"

Ryan nods. He doesn't know how to explain, doesn't even know if there's an explanation for him spending almost two hundred bucks in a piece of crystal, but God, he needed to have it. He needed something he can't even put into words.

"I just... I don't know." Ryan shrugs, looking down at his plate, suddenly not hungry anymore. He swallows. 

I'm running out of time, Seth, Ryan thinks, and this goes to show you just how little I have. 

He sighs, looking up at Seth. Seth, who turns it around in his hand, placing it on the bookshelves once again, the sand making its way down the small neck of the hourglass. Time passing by that Ryan will not get back, that will be forgotten, that keeps ticking by with no respect for the fact that he's slowly going blind. And everything changes, yet everything stays the same, and his hands shake even as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

"It's nice."

Ryan nods, eyes still closed. He hears Seth take his seat once again, pick his fork and scratch the plate as he takes a mouthful. He can hear Seth breathing, not picking up the conversation anymore. He can hear him reaching for the glass of orange juice. He can hear--

And that's all he can do, hear, that's all he'll be able to do soon enough. Hear and feel and taste and smell, but see, fuck, see-- 

Ryan blinks, slowly opening his eyes, and Seth's looking back at him, something deep in his eyes, words that don't make their way to Seth's lips but end in the mind, in brown eyes that speak so loud Ryan can almost hear him. He used to read so much in those eyes, and how will he read them now? Later, will he hear them? Could he hear them when all Seth says is carved in muscle and sinew and brown and shades in between? Ryan used to translate everything that was never said into a language he knew by heart. He used to know another language, Seth's language in his eyes, and now he's run out of words.

I can't read you, Seth, he hears the words in his mind, wonders if they make their way to his eyes, if they are carved in blue as clear as he used to see them in brown. Wonders how much he's showing on his face and how much he should conceal.

Seth reaches for Ryan's hand, takes it in his for a moment before squeezing softly, tenderly, lovingly, and Ryan can read another set of words in Seth's touch, and thinks maybe, maybe, the transition won't hurt physically, if Ryan can read Seth by touch alone.

*****

It's the hectic movement of people, the loud talk in the large space that is the airport, that makes Ryan feel a little bit edgy. It's Friday night of March 27th, the end of the week before spring break. Every single student has plans for the following week that includes a beach, tons of girls or boys, drinking until one of them, or all of them, passes out, and relaxing. For Ryan and Seth, the week brings nothing but uneasiness.

There are no harsh changes in light once he's inside, but Seth stays close by, his elbow touching Ryan's every other step they take. They check their luggage, and half an hour later, their flight is being called. Five people in the queue, giving in their tickets, and Ryan can feel his hands starting to damp and something in the back of his neck, something cold and holding onto his throat in an iron grip. 

He breathes in, slow and deeply, but it's not enough. His eyes play games with him, and everything around him dims for a second. The signs all around the airport are nothing more than the colors they have in the background. He can't see the words anymore, and it's like when he was in school and words were nothing but a blur of black that had no meaning. All the colors around him are dull, the person before him is nothing more than brown over a splotch of blue that Ryan's certain is a coat.

"Ryan?"

A hand on his arm, and this has turned into something of second nature in Seth apparently, to catch Ryan's attention by touching his forearm or his elbow. Ryan's grateful, though he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to voice it, but he is. He can't see over his shoulder, he can barely see his shoulders as it is. It's like he has his hands on either side of his face, covering everything around him. That's what his sight has been reduced to, nothing more than looking before him, and nothing but blackness on his sides.

"I'm fine," he breathes out.

He turns his head around, to his right, and it's only when his chin is over his shoulder that he can actually see Seth, standing there, not smiling but frowning instead in worry. Brown eyes are almost shapeless, but he can imagine them dark, darker than they usually are, and he can't see Seth's hair as separate strands of curls, but just almost black hair on his head. He can't see deeper into Seth's eyes, like he used to. He can't see Seth's feelings in those eyes, he can't see what Seth's thinking and it's like there's nothing but fear in his chest, in his body, in his soul, in his very breathing.

_I can't see you, Seth. My God, I can't see you anymore._

And the words are too much, too truthful for him to bear. He can't see Seth like he used to, he can't see Seth like he did that Saturday morning in the kitchen of a large house that was so alien to him. Ryan has known this man here for six years and he can't see what Seth's thinking.

Surprising himself, maybe almost as much as he surprises Seth, he reaches out, fingers touching Seth's chin, nothing but fingertips over soft skin. He can feel Seth tensing under his touch for a second before relaxing and Ryan breathes out with Seth, their breaths mingling and becoming air together, and Ryan has to close his eyes and feel Seth under his touch.

Seth, nothing but soft skin and touch and warm and familiar. Seth, breathing over his knuckles each time he breathes out. Seth, lips still as Ryan touches them as well. Seth, letting himself be known to Ryan in this new way, and not pulling away, not refusing. Seth, being Seth, and being here, with him. Seth, touch and person and body and life under his fingers.

Ryan lifts his hand from Seth, to let go of the person that makes his world take shape, that gives him direction and sense of belonging, that gives him north and south. Still, the hand on Ryan's shoulder doesn't hesitate, doesn't abandon him as one of his senses is, but seems to hold onto him even tighter.

"Let's go," Ryan says now, his voice steady, as he turns to look at the queue before him, nothing but empty space between them and the flight attendant. Ryan can guess that she's giving them a weird look, wondering what two people their age are doing touching each other in the middle of San Francisco airport. "Let's go see the parents."

Seth squeezes his hand on Ryan's shoulder and says, "whatever you say, dude." Seth's tone is light and happy and thrilled and just a little bit scared, all in one.

Ryan can't help the sigh of relief that leaves his lungs, finding comfort in the knowledge that he can understand Seth by his voice as much as he could by sight.

Together they walk forward, to the boarding desk, to the see parents in Newport Beach.


	3. iii.

Seth sighs as the cab pulls into the driveway, and he pauses for a moment before looking to his right at Ryan. Ryan, who has done nothing but look out the window the whole drive from the airport to the house. Ryan, who has barely said a word the entire plane ride.

It's the way Ryan sits, his head turned around, eyes glued to the window, that makes Seth sigh. Ryan doesn't look ready to leave the car, at least not yet, and Seth doesn't see the point in pushing him. And he's willing to sit there for as long as Ryan needs, and he's about to tell that to the cabby when the front door opens and the parents rush out, nineteen-month-old Sophie in Kirsten's arms, squirming to be put on the ground and allowed to rush herself at her siblings. Seth sighs, glancing at Ryan, who looks back at him.

Seth gets out of the car, watching Ryan do the same out of the corner of his eyes, as he sees his dad approaching him. His dad hugs him, his mother stays back as Sophie finds her footing and wobbles over to Ryan, hugging his legs. 

"Dayan," Sophie says against his knees, hugging as tight as she can.

Seth swallows as Ryan picks her up in his arms and gives her a sloppy kiss. "How are you kiddo?"

Sophie giggles, holding onto Ryan even as his mother to pull him into a hug. 

When his dad lets Seth go, his dad is grinning, and Seth glances at Ryan, in his mother's hold but at arms length for her to look at him closely, Sophie hugging Ryan's neck so tight, slobbering all over the collar of his shirt. For a second, Seth can't help but wonder if his mother can see it, notice the difference in Ryan's eyes, that not quite there look that has taken over at the worst of times.

"You guys are early!" Kirsten says, her gaze shifting from Ryan to Seth, then back to Ryan, giving him another tight hug, careful of Sophie in his arms. "We weren't expecting you until tomorrow morning. God, we wanted to pick you up from the airport."

Seth chuckles, shrugging as he does so. Yesterday afternoon, before Ryan's Structural Analysis, he had told Seth to try and find them tickets for Friday afternoon, after six. He wanted to get it over with, the sooner the better. He can't quite tell that to the parents. "We figured, well, why wait another day. Ryan finished his test, and I had nothing to get done."

"You should have called us," Sandy says, slapping Seth on the shoulder. "We could have gone and picked you boys up."

"It's okay."

They take their bags out, only one each, and Seth watches with a soft smile as they make their way to the front door, his mom hugging him before reaching the front steps, his dad hugging Ryan as well.

Ryan doesn't say anything, and after giving her big brother another wet kiss, Sophie asks to be put down, and Ryan complies. She rushes past the front door and into the house, and as the two of them walk into the house, Seth can't help but reach for Ryan's elbow, to touch it slightly, and even he can feel the change in lighting inside. The living room is brightly illuminated and that enough should throw Ryan off, and he knows Ryan doesn't want to tell the parents, not quite yet.

*****

Ryan hesitates, halting in his step, his eyes nothing but worthless muscles that could be plucked out with a fork, for all the help they are. There are stairs leading down to the living room, three of them, and he can see the edge of them, a little bit of a blur, more than they should be. He's familiar with this room, this house, he didn't live here for three years for nothing. But it's been three months since he visited, since the holidays, and truth is that when he closes his eyes, he can't quite fill the empty spaces where furniture should be.

The hand on his elbow squeezes slightly, and there's a whisper against his ear. "Two steps and there's the stairs, then three steps down, remember?"

He does. He knows.

Ryan sighs, walking forward, the hand on his forearm, touching him steadily, not once leaving him. He makes his way down the steps slowly, half afraid, because his eyes have not yet adjusted. He makes his way down the steps with so much hesitation, he's surprised the parents haven't noticed. He breathes a long sigh of relief when his feet tentatively touch the ground floor.

The hand stays with him, and as he makes his way through the living room and into the kitchen, his eyes start to adjust. When he enters the kitchen, Ryan can feel the change of light in the way his eyes sting somewhere in the back, how they burn as he blinks, and when he opens his eyes, he recognizes the island before him. He touches it with trembling fingers and clenches the edge tightly.

"You okay?"

Ryan nods, barely a movement of his head, and he keeps on blinking, the shapes around him taking form and the light slowly shining brighter in the darkness around him.

"We were just going to order dinner."

Sandy's voice, Ryan can recognize in a moment, and he turns around, looking at a shape that can only be Sandy. He blinks, nodding again, and in a moment he can see the contour of Sandy's face, the blur of his eyes, and it's not much worse than it would be if Ryan wasn't wearing his glasses.

"Boys, what do you want? Sophie, please, we're having dinner in a bit, put your toys away."

Kirsten's voice this time, on his left, closer than Sandy. Ryan turns around, completely turns around, and he can see her more clearly than h can see Sandy. The line of her mouth, the mug of coffee in her hand. He can't see her eyes, but then again, it's been so long since he was able to see anyone's eyes without his glasses. He smiles at her, tight and painful, but smiles.

"Thai will be fine," Seth answers for Ryan, and Ryan nods.

Something moves from out of the den toward them and when he looks down, it's Sophie with something in her hands and showing it to them. It's an orange block of Lego. Ryan's voice catches in his throat.

"Thanks, Sophie," he whispers, taking it from her, and then she rushes back into the den.

He glances over his shoulder, to where Seth's standing, left forearm touching his right, his only connection to the outside world. He sighs, softly, and then Seth's left hand touches the low of his back, and Ryan can only nod. He has no way of thanking Seth for answering a question he doesn't think he could have answered himself.

"Sure."

"We'll be in the den, okay? God, we're tired," Seth says, and before the parents can answer, Seth's hand is on his back, pushing him slightly, and Ryan takes the hint.

Ryan walks, slowly, hesitantly, but when they pass the fridge, Seth's hand moves to his elbow once again.

"It's okay, I'm here. It's okay."

Ryan nods, and the light coming from the den doesn't shock him this time, and when he turns the corner, he can actually see the TV set, if not recognize what's being shown. Sophie giggles and throws something and it crashes against the floor. Kirsten calls out a warning and Sophie giggles again and Ryan's heart catches, because fuck, when he turns to look at his sister -- his baby sister, only nineteen months old -- she's nothing but a blur of pink shirt and golden hair, sitting on the corner of the couch, a million toys around her.

He sighs, so tired, his very weight seeming to be pulling him down. He sits down heavily on the couch, closes his eyes and leans his head back. He bites back the desire to groan from tiredness.

"We have to tell them," Seth says, leaning to his right, to whisper in Ryan's ear. "Ryan, dude, we gotta tell them," Seth says again, his voice lowered, closer, secretive.

"Not yet," Ryan whispers back, eyes closed shut, a grimace on his face.

"How in the world are you gonna get to the pool house, huh?"

Ryan cringes at Seth's words, at the fucking truth hitting him in the face, but says nothing.

"No, no, way, Ryan. We're telling them."

"Seth--"

"We have to," Seth hisses under his breath, in Ryan's ear, and Ryan turns to look at Seth this time.

He narrows his eyes, not quite seeing Seth's eyes, and definitely no seeing Sophie because she's too far off to the left, in his blind spot, and his chest goes cold all of a sudden. "It's my secret to tell, Seth. And we're not."

Seth sighs, shakes his head and closes his eyes. Ryan glances to his left, turning his head around until he can finally, _finally_ see Sophie with her Legos and building something before she stands up and makes her way to the kitchen. He can hear Kristen thanking Sophie and Sophie saying something he can't quite catch. He sighs again, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. The back of his shoulders ache, pressure seeming to have moved from behind his eyes down to his throat, and a second later he can feel Seth's eyes on him.

*****

Dinner is filled with questions about the subjects they are taking, about the teachers and the lab reports. Seth talks about the books he's reading for British Authors, and ten minutes into dinner, Ryan's grinning and laughing here and there, so very easy to fool himself into believing that it's three years ago and they are both in high school and everything is right with the world. He can almost believe that he can see beyond the other side of the table, that those shapeless beige things are the cabinets and he can read the time on the clock at the other side of the kitchen. That he can see Kirsten, see the change of shades in her eyes and what she's saying with them, that he can see the lines of age in Sandy's forehead, the way Sophie laughs, with her head thrown back, like Seth used to laugh.

"What about you, sweetie?" Kirsten asks after a moment, turning to her left, handing Sophie a piece of chicken that she squeezes in one pudgy hand before nibbling on it. Kirsten caresses Sophie's face before turning to him. 

Ryan can only glance to his left, Seth's elbow still touching his, and then to his right, where Sandy sits at the head of the table, grinning at him as well. He swallows. "Kirsten--"

"I mean, any girls you want to tell us about?"

Ryan chuckles, nervousness seeping from his pores, and he can feel the sweat on his palms and he can only clean them on his jeans. "Oh, that. No, nothing. I'm--" He shrugs, not sure what to say. "I've been too busy."

"Never too busy for love, Ryan. Never too busy." Sandy says with a soft and almost tender tone, and Ryan turns his head around to see Sandy looking at Kirsten. And he can't see what Sandy's saying with his eyes, but he can imagine it, and that, for him, right now, is more than enough.

He coughs into his hand, something bitter and dark uncoiling from his inside, from his stomach, and coming up to close his throat. Seth's touch, on his forearm, and Ryan shakes his head. "I'm fine."

"Ryan--?"

"Fine," he says slowly, with a glare and a tight smile, but Seth doesn't back off. He shakes his head, and he has never needed air as much as he does at the moment. "Excuse me," he says, and he has barely pushed back his chair before there's Seth's hand, holding onto his elbow, not letting him go.

"Ryan?"

Ryan gives Seth a tight smile, and hopes his eyes are saying that which he can't say at the moment, not with the parents next to him, not with them watching his every move. "I'll be right back."

Seth sighs, Ryan can almost hear the sound, before nodding and letting his hand drop. With one last smile to the table, Ryan turns around, slowly, and makes his way through the kitchen and to the living room.

*****

Seth can only watch Ryan go, nothing but apprehension in his throat, like a hand gripping so tight he might fucking suffocate before Ryan returns. He sighs, leaning back in the chair, tiredness in his very bones, and maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come to Newport on a Friday night. They could have taken the afternoon off, rest, recuperate, recharge, whatever, before going as they had planned and coming home on Saturday morning. Bright and early and after a night where neither of them had to pretend.

"Seth, is everything okay?"

He looks up, and his mom is looking right at him, blue eyes filled with concern, and he can feel his throat closing in fear. Oh, fuck. Ryan, damn it, why did you leave me alone? I'm gonna cave, I swear to God. I'm so gonna cave.

He shrugs, swallowing as he does so. "Yeah, he's fine."

His mother's eyes, blue, very much like Ryan's but only a shade darker, narrow. "Seth, I'm your mother. I've known you all twenty years of your life. What are you not telling me?"

"Mom, God. What are you talking about? Me, hiding?" He shakes his head, chuckling as he does so, but if he can hear the nervousness in his laughter, then so can his parents. Even Sophie seems to be looking at him all weird and stuff. "Why would I ever--?"

"Seth," his dad picks up, his eyebrows frowning, leaning forward to look at him in the eye, "if Ryan's having trouble with the subjects--"

But his dad doesn't get to finish that sentence, and Seth doesn't have the time to actually cave and say everything Ryan doesn't want him to tell. There's a crash in the living room and Seth can feel his heart jumping up to his throat, and everything seems to still for a second. And then everything's rushing as he pushes his chair back, falling down in the process, and he rushes out the kitchen and to the living room.

"Oh, God," Seth whispers, barely even catching his breath, and he can see Ryan on his hands and knees, slowly pulling himself up, in the middle of the living room. "Oh, God, Ryan--"

He makes his way in between the couch and the center table, reaching out, touching Ryan's shoulder, trying not to startle him, even as Ryan cringes.

*****

Ryan doesn't pull away this time, when there's a hand on his shoulder, and he can remember earlier this week when he had lashed out at Seth for trying to help him. Ryan swallows, his hand bumping Seth's chest and gripping a tight fistful of Seth's shirt. "Seth?"

"I'm here, I'm right here."

And it's stupid, the way he just fell down, face first. So fucking stupid that he didn't see the couch on the right, didn't notice the center table on his left and when his shin hit it, he lost his balance and vertigo caught him for a second and that was more than enough for him to lose his footing and fall down with anything but grace.

Seth's hands, one on his right arm, the other on his left elbow holding him from behind, are the ones that help him up, and even when he's standing, Seth doesn't let go until Ryan's certain he can hold his own weight. Ryan takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and he turns around, looking over his right shoulder, wanting nothing more than to see Seth. He wants to see Seth's face, concern in brown eyes. He fucking wants to see Seth's face and this blur of color that seems to barely hold shape, to haunt him on the edges of his vision. His left hand reaches forward clumsily and Seth lets his left elbow go, allowing him to turn around in his hold, Seth's hand still on Ryan's right arm.

"It's okay. I'm here. Dude, it's okay."

He can't quite see Seth's eyes now, not after the fall and the movement, and Seth's face is nothing but this shapeless thing on top of his neck and Seth's eyes aren't even part of the shape, nothing but a blotch of brown and Ryan grimaces, shaking his head. He might not be able to see Seth, but he can hear him, the anguish in his tone, and Ryan gives him a small smile and a self conscious shrug. "I didn't see the coffee table."

Seth chuckles, but Ryan can hear tears in his voice. "I kinda thought so, dude. Clumsy you."

Ryan gives him a small smile, even through the pain in his chest, in his heart, in his very hands, and his left one reaches for Seth's waist, holding on for a moment, a second. When he looks over Seth's shoulder, the parents are looking at him, Sophie in Kirsten's arms, saying, "no, no, down, down, mommy, down." Ryan can't see their eyes either, can't even see their expression, but he doesn't need to see to know that they are looking at him with wide eyes, surprised, confused, and just a little bit scared.

Seth's hand tightens on Ryan's forearm before letting him go, and Ryan nods, silently thanking him. He takes a step to the side, a careful step as not to repeat the performance of a second ago, and bends his head down to really see the floor. He reaches the armchair at the corner of the living room and he sighs, sitting down heavily. Seth stands next to him, hand hovering over his shoulder before falling to grip the bone, tight and soft at the same time.

The parents don't say anything for a second and then Kirsten finally puts Sophie down, and closes the distance and stands right before him. His eyes sting in the back, his throat tight, and his neck burns with embarrassment because this certainly wasn't the way he wanted to break this to them.

"Ryan, sweetie, what--?"

"I think you better sit down," Seth says with a sigh, and Ryan can only look down at his hands. 

After a moment, Seth squeezes his shoulders and he looks up at Seth. Seth gives him a small smile, close to encouraging, but Ryan can imagine it tastes bittersweet in Seth's tongue.

Ryan nods, turns around, Kirsten's sitting on the armrest of the couch to his right, Sandy taking a seat on the coffee table, his hand gripping Kirsten's tightly.

"Sophie--" Kirsten starts, but doesn't get to finish her sentence.

"Le'oos!" She says, making her way to the kitchen and the den.

Kirsten sighs, obviously torn, before saying, "give me a sec. I'll bring her bucket of Legos," and she leaves the room after Sophie.

They wait, silence heavy with expectation, before Kirsten returns with Sophie in her hands, and places her on the carpet, right by her knees, bucket of Legos for Sophie to do as she pleases.

Ryan takes in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "I have something to tell you."

He wishes he knew how to start this, this sentence, this moment in time that will change his future. He wishes he didn't have to tell them, that they could just know, intuitively, and that he didn't have to do this, to say this, to go through the words once again, like he did three weeks ago with Seth.

The only way he can start, he thinks, is at the beginning.

"Five weeks ago, I went to the optometrist to have my eyes checked." He sighs, turning around, giving Sandy and Kirsten a sideways glance before looking down at his hands. He can't, he can't look at them and say this. He's not strong enough. "I thought it was nothing. I thought I only needed a new prescription."

He snorts, because he doesn't know what else to do with that memory. Certain he was going to have to call Kirsten, explain the two hundred bucks he withdrew from his and Seth's expense account, having to accept that yes, he needs new contacts and new glasses. He has given up on the contacts, they only irritate his retinas, and the glasses make things look blurry at the best of times and make his head hurt at the worst.

Ryan glances to his right, at Kirsten. He can see the contour of her face, the outline of her hair and her shoulders, the way her hands are folded on her lap, but he can't see her eyes. They look like a blur of blue, with no shades in between, like a stroke of a brush on a skin colored canvas. Just a blotch of blue. Her eyes, he thinks, and swallows thickly, looking down at his hands. The edges of his own fingers look as if something had blurred them while the paint was still drying.

"I was told to see an ophthalmologist."

He pauses, closing his eyes, and remembers his nights at Berkeley, in their two bedroom apartment. At night, he can hear nothing but the wind and his fear, darkness pulling around the corners of his very eyes. He blinks, opening his eyes, and though he knows Seth's on his left -- sitting on the armrest of the armchair he's occupying at the moment -- Seth's too far to his side. In his blind spot, in his ever decreasing peripheral vision. He can feel Seth's warmth as Seth's elbow touching his forearm, but when he glances at Seth from the corner of his eyes, all he can see is layers of black. It's like hands have been placed on either side of his head and he has not noticed them moving, slowly closing around on him, closer and closer, until he will have nothing left to see.

"Sweetie, whatever it is, it's okay."

Kirsten's words don't quite reach him, and it's not until there's a hand on his knee that he flinches, the touch suddenly too much, too bright, too strong, too everything, and he takes in a shaky breath.

Ryan wants to snort. "No, it's not."

She doesn't gasp, or if she does, he doesn't hear her, but she does squeeze his knee once before pulling her hand away.

"Mommy?"

Ryan glances down at Sophie, looking up at Kirsten with a frown on her beautiful face, her eyebrows scrunched up, and Ryan can't help it, he reaches out, caresses her face and grimaces.

_I won't see you turn ten, probably. I might not even see you turn five, Sophie. I'm sorry._

"It's okay, baby," Kirsten says after a moment, but her voice catches, and Ryan doesn't know if she's talking to Sophie or to him.

He sighs, and he wishes he knew how to start this, when his chest seems compressed by fear alone and all he can hear is his heartbeat beating in his temples, he sighs and says, "I have retinitis pigmentosa."

Ryan doesn't glance at them, like he did when he told Seth. He doesn't think he could take it, the confusion in their eyes, the worry that comes from knowing that a confession like this can't hold anything good.

In his mind, Ryan can almost see them. Kirsten blinking, confused, and at the same time worried about him. He can see Sandy, shaking his head, in denial, concern but at odds, and he can see Seth's reaction all over again, looking at Ryan knowing there was more to those words than what met the eye.

"Ryan--?"

"There are things I need to explain first," Ryan whispers, his voice low, his hands clutching each other in a death grip. "Please."

They don't say anything for a moment, and Ryan wishes he was strong enough to look at them and see what they are thinking, if only this time. He sighs, and gives in, and looking up, he can only see Kirsten, the outline of her face, the curve of her lips. He can't see her eyes, not anymore, and wonders if it's his eyes that are tired or if he's too late to see her eyes now.

Sandy reaches for Kirsten's hand, and holds onto it tightly, and Ryan blinks, looking up at Sandy. Sandy's eyes, Ryan remembers, so much like Seth's, and so different at the same time. His eyes, though reassuring, aren't as open as Seth's. His eyes, Ryan remembers, because he can't see them anymore, were the one thing that made him trust Sandy in the first place.

And so he starts, the litany of words and sentences that have become his life, his ever- changing present, the light that no longer shines in his eyes, but around him, and he has been blinded to. There's not much to be said, nothing to add to what he told Seth, and yet this time, it seems to weigh him down twice as much as it did weeks ago.

At some point in his story, Sophie stands up, noticing that the mood around her has changed, and goes to her mother, holding out her hands. Kirsten picks her up and settles her on her lap and Sophie buries her face in Kirsten's chest. Ryan closes his eyes for a second before continuing.

It's the Cohens he gets to see now, to hear fall quiet in shock and surprise. He might not be able to see the change of color in their eyes as the words pour from him, the explanations, the small story that will be told in less than ten minutes, but he can see it still. In a way. He can see them shift, from worried to sorrowful, and then to something akin to denial, very much like Seth had been three weeks ago.

Ryan explains and repeats himself, there's nothing to be done, there's nothing, _I'm sorry, but this is the way it is._ There's no medicine to make him better, no treatment that would help, no doctor that knows a way. And so it takes them almost an hour to finally be done with the subject, for Ryan to let them know that yes, it's happening, in that very minute.

"I'm sure there's something we can do," Kirsten says, conviction in her voice, and Ryan sighs, tiredly, sick of this conversation.

"Mom--"

"You haven't looked enough, you haven't talked with any specialists, have you?" Kirsten shakes her head, looking at Ryan and he wishes he could do something, tell her something that will give her peace of mind, that will make her stop. Sophie sniffs against her and she placates her child. "There's research, clinical trials, we're always raising funds for medical research--"

"There's nothing, mom, would you quit it?" Seth sighs, turning to look at Ryan, who can't help but look down at his hands. "We've tried, okay? We looked, and I did the very same thing you're doing right now and this is the fucking end of the race, okay?"

Kirsten gasps, probably surprised Seth can so much as talk to her like that. Ryan sighs, and rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. "Seth Ezekiel--"

"At times I think the only reason you gave me that middle name is so you could yell at me," Seth says with a glare, his eyes narrowing.

It's Sandy's hand that prevents her from saying anything else. She looks down at Sandy, now sitting next to her on the couch, having moved there somewhere along the explanation, holding onto her hand. "Kirsten, please," Sandy says.

Ryan blinks, turning to look at Sophie, her eyes closed, her mouth down in a pout. Sandy sounds like Seth did, sadness lacing his voice. Sandy sounds broken, at the very end of his rope, and it pains Ryan that he put that there. That he did this to him, to them.

Kirsten sighs, tiredly, and nods. Sandy gives her a small smile that looks more like a grimace on his lips. He turns to look at both boys, and whispers, "How long have you known?"

The question makes Ryan's chest grow cold, his hands shake and he clenches them even more in his lap. He has lied to them, Ryan knows, if only by omission. But how was he supposed to say this? How could he look at them, when he could actually see them, and tell them that he's doing this to them now, after everything that happened when he was in high school? How could he break them like this?

Ryan has to answer, he knows, he owes them that much at the very least.

"Three weeks," Ryan says, his voice low, his eyes not leaving his hands.

It's the lack of response that makes Ryan look up, at Kirsten, looking broken, sitting right there, never so fragile as this moment, this minute. He's hurting her, he's hurting her and he wishes he didn't have to. She's his mom, and Ryan's hurting her with this.

"All this time..." Kirsten takes in a deep breath that sounds as if it could end up in a sob. "My God, all this time, and you never told us?"

Ryan sighs, and this time there's no need for his eyes to work, for him to be able to see the change of shade in her blue eyes, the way the lines around her lips tighten or how her face crumbles into a grimace of pain and sorrow, because he can hear that in her voice alone.

"I didn't know how to tell you," Ryan says, his voice nothing but a whisper in the otherwise silent room. "I didn't know how to--" He shrugs, and pauses for a moment, and in that second he's the same person he was all those years ago, with his head ducked, his voice so low. "I didn't know how to say it."

"Oh, sweetie," Ryan hears Kirsten say and looks up in time to see her shift Sophie to Sandy and then stand up and pull him to her chest.

And it's the angle, Ryan sitting and her standing, that allows her to press him to her stomach, like he feels she has done before, to Seth, probably, when he was young, a kid in her arms. "Oh, baby."

Ryan doesn't say anything, his throat choked up from the emotion. He wants to put his arms around her, he wants to bury his face in her stomach, but doesn't even know how to start to do so. Instead, he sighs, his hands holding onto her hips, and he breathes in. It's easy to recognize her perfume, traces of cotton in her blouse, and the softness coming not from the feminine in her, but the mother in her very breath.

It's almost a minute before they pull away, before Kirsten places him at arm's length and looks at him.

"You don't have to keep anything a secret, Ryan. Everything you want to tell us, everything you don't ever want to tell us--" She pauses as her voice quivers, and she chuckles, tears in her eyes and her voice. "Oh, sweetie. We're your parents, you gotta believe that. We love you. We--" She shakes her head. "You can tell us everything, please. Don't do this again, okay? Don't keep this to yourself again."

It's not a question, but Ryan can only nod, closing his eyes as he does so.

She nods as well, giving him a small hug before sitting down once again, her hands trembling in her lap. Sandy takes them in between his and kisses them, over Sophie's head.

"What do you wanna do now?" Sandy asks, because he knows someone has to, and Kristen is too heartbroken to think beyond the now and the two months they had not known about this. 

Ryan sighs, blinking, trying to find the beginning of the sentence to that question. It's not as if he hasn't thought about this, that very answer, for the past three weeks. He hasn't been able to do much but think, to do research for areas of work, to think about it over and over again, until all he could come up with was giving up the pretense that graduating was even worth it.

"I want to finish the semester, then--" Ryan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes start stinging from the back all the way up to his forehead. He sighs. "I don't know. I don't know if I can graduate, I don't even know if I'll be able to go to school next year. And Dr. McKay suggested that I start considering the rest of my options."

Kirsten looks back at him, giving him a small smile, a sad smile, and leans forward to take his right hand in both of hers.

"It's okay, sweetie," she says, conviction in her voice that Ryan knows she's telling herself she feels. "We'll--" She takes in a deep breath. "We can look into things. There's no need to rush into anything."

Ryan looks at her, leaning forward, so close to him that he can see the redness around the white of her eyes, the tight lines around the corners, and he sighs.

There's nothing we can do, Ryan wants to tell her again. There's nothing anyone can do. But he says nothing.

It will not happen overnight, Ryan tells himself in his mind, and that is his only comfort when there's nothing but darkness surrounding him, and it's still never enough.

"Look," Seth after a moment, when the pressure behind Ryan's eyes has been too much and he starts pinching the bridge of his nose. "We're tired, Ryan more so, and this won't change between tonight and tomorrow, so how about we go to bed and then, well." He sighs. "Tomorrow we can keep talking about this."

The parents agree, reluctantly. Ryan can barely manage a couple of words to them, stupid platitudes, whispers of, "it's alright. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

Kirsten doesn't break down, but she hugs him tight, crushing him against her chest, and he can hear her tears in her breath, the edge of a sob on her throat, and it's by sheer will alone that she's composed when she pulls away.

Sandy doesn't say anything, only hugs him as well he can with Sophie still in his arms, swallows thickly, and says his goodnights as well.

Ryan kisses Sophie's cheek, who holds out her arms to him, and he picks her up for a second. She might not understand what was said, but she knows. Ryan can almost feel her asking questions with her eyes, and he can only kiss her cheek, her face, her eyes and then give her to Kirsten. He'll tell her everything, Ryan tells himself, he'll tell her everything, every detail of his disease, when she's old enough to understand him.

And after everything that has happened, after the confession that feels as if it was ripped out of his very soul, he's too tired to want to think about anything else but reaching his bed and turning around, his back to the wall, and forgetting this night ever happened.

"Come on," Seth whispers against his ear, hand on Ryan's left elbow. "Let's go to the pool house."

Ryan looks over his shoulder at Seth, half glaring, but not even having the strength to do so completely. "I can find my way there, thank you very much. I've only slept there for three years, you know?"

But he knows he's complaining to the air, and Seth knows this as well, and neither of them add anything else as they make their way through the kitchen and to the French doors. Ryan halts his step as he pushes open the French door, feet on tiled floor, the change in light catching him unprepared, even though he was waiting for it.

He breathes in shakily and can't help but take a step back, bumping his back against Seth's chest, and all Seth does is change grip, his right hand on Ryan's right elbow.

"It's okay, it's okay." Ryan closes his eyes, Seth's breath warm on his ear. "Just give it a minute. Just give yourself a minute."

Meaningless words, nothing but breath and air and sounds, Ryan's breathing turning shallow and his chest tight. The hand on his elbow tightens, almost making him hurt, but at least the pain calls his attention away from the fact that all he can see is darkness and black and no top nor bottom, no right nor left, and he takes in a breath that ends in a sigh.

"It's going to come back, Ryan. It's okay. It's not going to happen overnight."

He closes his eyes tighter against the words he has been telling himself, coming from Seth's mouth. He nods, barely a moment from his head, and when he opens his eyes again, they are finally adjusting to the change of light. He can see the edges of the house on his left, of the pool house before him, and the pool a little to his left. He can see the edges, but no details, but for him, those aren't needed as long as he has this, this much, this little.

"Ryan?"

The question shouldn't surprise him, but it does, and he blinks, taken back by Seth patiently waiting for him to feel confident enough to move. Ryan nods, not knowing what to say, how to answer that simple question, and can almost feel Seth nod behind him.

Seth shifts his hold once again, right hand on Ryan's left arm, before they make their way slowly to the pool house, five steps up to the patio, the chimney and couches around it to his right, pool to his left, then slowly to the pool house, one last step and he's inside. It's Seth who turns on the light inside the pool house and Ryan blinks, blinded once again and he bites down on the inside of his cheek so hard, he's certain he has drawn blood.

"Shit, can you--?"

Ryan can only shake his head at Seth's question, angry and frustrated all in one, and he tries to remember how far away the futon is. It can't be more than three paces, it can't be. He takes one step forward, tentatively, and Seth's hold on his left arm tightens. He shakes his head once again, pulls away harshly, and takes another step. He freezes in that moment, fear like he has never experienced before clenching around his throat and he takes in a shaky breath, lips pressed into a thin line.

It feels like he's at the edge of a cliff, nothing but blackness before him.

Another step, he tells himself, the bed can't be more than another step away.

It feels like he's at the edge of a cliff.

Just another step.

At the edge--

"Ryan--"

The hand on his elbow, wanting nothing more than to stir him to safe harbor. But he's tired of having to depend on someone, on a hand on his elbow for him to fucking see his surroundings.

"I'm fine, damn it," he hisses through his lips, jerking away from Seth's grasp.

He half turns as he moves away from Seth and that leaves him without a sense of direction, with no idea of north or south, and though a minute ago he was certain the bed had to be another step before him, now it could very well be a mile to his right for all he knows.

"Fuck." Ryan blinks, rapidly and furiously, and his eyes make no distinction between light and dark, shapes or forms. It's nothing but a dim gray before him, around him. When the hand arrives again, only fingers touching the inside of his wrist, he has to sigh and give in and let himself be led to the bed.

He walks slowly, two more steps, and Seth whispers, "right there. Slowly." In his next step, he can feel the edge of the futon against his shins and he can't help the sigh of relief that escapes his lips, turning around carefully and sitting down.

It's only when he can feel the covers against the back of his legs, the edge of the futon underneath the clenching of his own hand, that he leans forward, neck tingling with anger and embarrassment that burns deep inside him and lets him know that he's coming closer to the day when he blinks, the dark will stay.

His breathing is loud in his ears, akin to pounding in surround sound, and for a moment he wonders if Seth can hear it too, if he can understand the reason he has his fingers in his hair, his eyes covered with the heels of his palms.

"I'm gonna go for our bags."

Hesitation, fear, apprehension, all that Ryan can hear in Seth's tone, in the way the words are spoken, in the very inflection of them. Ryan snorts, somewhere inside him, because at least he can hear properly, at least he can get some input from his fucking ears now that his eyes have decided to quit on him. At least he can still read Seth by ear as he used to do by sight. The feeling is very little consolation to him now.

Ryan doesn't answer, doesn't even move, but a second later he hears Seth moving to the front door, closing it after him softly. He sighs, shaking his head once before pulling his hands down and looking around him.

His eyes are clearing, slowly, almost tiredly, and he can understand. It's been a long day, with too many shifts and changes of light, and just as he can feel his very bones heavy with exhaustion, his eyes have to be feeling the same -- worse. And yet, he can remember a time when he could have walked into the pool house and not even needed the night lamp on the nightstand. The moonlight and the lights Kirsten always left on until she went to bed on the outside of the house, surrounding both the pool and the very property, would have been more than enough.

Ryan stands with some hesitation, with doubt he hates himself for feeling, and looks out the glass panels. The catch of the light in the glass gives him a headache, his pulse thumping loudly in his temples, and his eyes seem to flicker with the light as well. He closes his eyes, turning away from it, and when he opens them, hesitant at first, he can see the edges of the lamp, the steps, and the kitchen area to his left. He sighs, and moves slowly around the bed to the bathroom.

He doesn't turn the light on inside, afraid his eyes will blink out once again, and washes his face with the dim light coming from outside. His brush is in his bag, along with the sweats and t-shirt he wears for bed, and he groans in the back of his throat.

He stares at his reflection in the mirror. He can't quite see the shape of his eyes, or the lines around them, but he can see the blur that they are now, the contour of his hair, of his cheeks and his jaw. It's like he has taken his glasses off and is now shortsighted, it's exactly like that. And still, this much sight, this moment, in the very present of his life, it almost feels like a miracle.

When he walks out, Seth's sitting on the edge of the bed, in pajamas himself, and Ryan wonders how long he was in the bathroom, staring at a shape of himself that he can barely see. It's obvious in the way Seth's there, just looking back at Ryan, that whatever he wants to tell Seth about this, about not needing company when all he's going to do is crash in his bed and close his eyes and tell himself not to think about how he can't possibly be a Civil Engineer if he can't fucking see, is going to fall on deaf ears.

Ryan sighs and makes his way to his bag on the bed. He puts on his sweatpants and white t-shirt while Seth's in the bathroom, and when the other boy walks out, Ryan's already placing the bag next to the whickered boxes that he used as a closet for years. He lies in bed in silence, pulling back the covers and lying on his right like always. Seth's takes the right side of the bed, the one closest to the night lamp, his back to Ryan, and he's the one to turn it off. Ryan blinks, and it's nothing but darkness once again, and this time he closes his eyes with nothing but a sense of defeat against the shadow of the enemy he can't fight anymore.

Seth shifts on the bed, Ryan can feel it dip and move and complain slightly, and he smiles, because this he remembers from the years of high school. Seth crawling into his bed when he was scared or worried, coming to the pool house so they could talk, so Seth could talk and Ryan could listen. Just being there, the two of them, against everything and everyone.

United, we're unstoppable. But divided--

That he remembers, and with that in his memory, it's easy to close his eyes and give in to sleep.

He's so far under, so very quickly, that he almost doesn't feel one final dip of the bed and the hand on his shoulder.

*****

When Ryan blinks, sleepiness still around the edges of his mind, gnawing at him like cobwebs, he can see clearer than he has in a long time. He blinks once again, and opens his eyes wide, and though the curtains of the pool house are down, the light pouring inside lets him see the edges of every single piece of furniture, see details like his old desk against the furthest wall, the very wrinkles in his knuckles.

He takes in a deep breath, lighter in his chest, and is about to stand up when he takes notice of the hand on his waist, the body close to his, chest to his back, and smiles. Seth was always a snuggler. Slowly, as not to wake Seth, he lifts the hand from his hip and places it on top of the bed. He pulls back the covers and stands up, and when he walks toward the doors, he doesn't hesitate in his step. He feels nothing but confidence in his eyes for once, and doesn't dare question how long this will last, how long his eyes will last.

Ryan pushes the doors open and though the sun light hits him in the eyes, he squints and for a minute all he can see is the vast expanse of ocean before him, its blueness and bottomlessness and never-ending vastness, and he has to take in a breath, slowly, carefully. He has to blink to see where the ocean meets the horizon and how the shore is nothing but light brown. There are trees and grass and the ocean and the sky, and he blinks once again, telling himself to see everything, see it now while he still can. See it now and memorize it, carve it into his skin, because the next time he comes back to visit, he might not be able to see this in all its beauty and be taken back by it just as much as he was that very first time, six years ago.

And those six years feel like nothing but a breath, a minute and a second ago. The way he breathes in, the way his hand shakes as it tightens around the knob, he might as well be fifteen and not know his way around the house, not know that there's a boy in the kitchen waiting for him to befriend, parents who will care for him when he most needs it, a future for him to start living.

He closes his eyes and he can see it all again. That morning, Seth sitting on the floor, controller in hand, looking confused and alone and young and everything in one, Sandy saying they should go to the party that night, Kirsten smiling and not quite believing he isn't going to steal the jewelry.

And yet in six years his life has changed. He has someone on his side now, who cares about what might happen to him, who cares enough to steer him to safe harbor, to _be_ his safe harbor. He has parents who worry, who feel helpless for him, over him. He has a life, he will always have a life, even if he doesn't have the eyes to see it.

When he opens his eyes, the sun still shines over him, and the ocean is still endless, but it's right, around him. Life, if only for a second, is just right.

"Ryan?"

Ryan looks over his shoulder, and the dimness of the pool house plays tricks on his sight, and this time he can barely see the outline of Seth's form, sitting down. He can imagine Seth blinking, head cocked to the side, confusion and just the tinge of fear in his eyes. He smiles again and tells himself he doesn't need his eyes to see Seth, even though that doesn't comfort him as much as he wishes it did.

"I'm here, Seth."

Seth doesn't answer, and when his eyes have adjusted to the light, he blinks. Seth's smiling back at him, nodding, pushing back the covers. He joins Ryan by the doors of the pool house and places his hand on Ryan's shoulder, leaving it there only a second before dropping it to his side.

"Come on, let's go have breakfast."

Ryan nods, turning to his left and walking down the steps to the kitchen. He glances over his shoulder, horizon and ocean melding into a blue that burns his retinas, and when he turns around once again, Seth's looking at him. He sighs, and though he wants to smile, can't find it within himself to do so. Seth doesn't question, doesn't prod, only nods and they make their way to the kitchen with confident footing, in silence and under the bright morning light.


	4. vi.

Days start going by, one by one, and by mid April, Ryan's life is nothing but keeping up with classes. It's making sure he studies while there still is sunlight because his night vision is slowly going to hell. It's telling himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth and not hate the way Seth has to pick him up from classes because it has been months since he last drove. It's noticing how Seth starts to anticipate his arrivings and goings, change in light kept to minimum. He tells himself he's not bitter, he doesn't have the strength in him to be bitter, doesn't have the _privilege_. But truth is, his time is slowly ticking and somewhere in his mind, in that dark part he doesn't like to look at, he's pretty fucking scared.

It's not easy for Ryan to notice and acknowledge the fact that time is flying by, past him, leaving him behind, alone and lost, and he hates it, deep inside. There's time he can never get back, time which turns into his past which in turn will turn into a memory. It will be the memory of when he could see, when his eyes graced him with that gift, no longer here, in his hands.

He closes his eyes shut, tells himself that dwelling on things is not him. He moves on, he handles things. He's stable, he's fine, he's the fucking rock. But he can't. He knows he can't keep this up for long, and when he breaks -- because he knows he'll break -- he just hopes he's alone.

When he opens his eyes, his head starts to hurt and his eyes feel swollen, heavy under his eyelids. For a second he wants nothing more than to lie down in bed and forget about the tests, the studying and Mechanics of Fluids.

He blinks, and the words blur together in nothing but shades of black over white, splotches of dark that make no sense. A hand clenches around his heart. He takes in a shallow breath through his mouth, letting it out slowly, and he wants to believe that it's not time yet. He feels it inside him, it won't happen overnight.

There will be a time when his eyes won't adjust, when there won't even be white to see. There will be nothing but blackness surrounding him and he wonders how he'll cope. He wonders how he'll learn to be that man, not this one. How he'll learn to shift his priorities and move on. He wonders if he'll manage.

He'll have to. He doesn't have another choice. He'll have to.

He won't see. The words make him cold inside. He closes his eyes, unable to do anything else.

His fingers reach forward, tentatively, hesitantly, touching the edge of his pen and moving to the right, over his HP calculator, over pages he's certain are the old exams he's going over. His hand moves further down the desk to the base of a small lamp, and then to his front, touching the edge of the book he has opened there. He can feel the edges of the pages on his fingertips, fingers moving over the page he was reading only a minute ago.

There were words here, he thinks, where his fingers touch and he can no longer see. There were words here he could read, and now there's nothing in the page, not even a change in mass, nothing but blackness that his eyes can't read.

Ryan presses his lips into a line and reminds himself that he will learn to read with his fingers. 

His eyes hurt, prickle and sting. His heart races. His skin crawls with anger. His neck burns with shame. His face contours in a grimace. He bites the inside of his cheek as a groan dies in his throat. 

The door opens and Ryan's eyes open in surprise with it, his right hand moving to slam close the book, breathing in through his mouth, making no sound.

"Dude?"

"Hey," Ryan says, blinking rapidly and standing up slowly. He pushes the chair back against the desk and turns to look at Seth. Seth walks into the apartment and drops his backpack next to the bookcase. It's always in the same spot, not like before when he dropped it wherever he wanted. "I thought you had classes until seven."

Seth shrugs, making his way slowly toward Ryan, head tilted to the side. "Teacher left one hour early." He blinks and he focuses so hard on Ryan that Ryan ducks his head.

His eyes are red, probably, and Seth might ask about it and Ryan has no idea what he'll say. He touches the edge of the closed book, his eyes closing at their own volition, his heart remembering the way the pages felt empty under his touch.

"Want pizza?"

Ryan nods, not saying anything. He misses a time when going out for dinner was an option. They never did go out much, but now it's nothing but a memory as it has been months -- since Seth found out -- that they went out for pizza or Thai or anything. Seth worries about the changes in light and Ryan admits that it takes too much energy to go out. They settle for companionship and their apartment and what they call their normality.

"Sure," Ryan says after a moment, his fingers closing tightly over the corner of the hardcover of the book.

If Seth sees the redness in his eyes, he doesn't say anything and Ryan's grateful for that as well. In the past couple of months, Ryan has been grateful for a lot of things, and especially for Seth.

He sighs, blinking, watching the bold letters on top of the cover of the book, and pushes it away from him, as far away as he can without the book falling and turns around to help Seth set the table.

*****

In the late afternoon, when the sun has set and shadows have been cast in the room and Ryan's headache has fallen to the background as noise he's already used to, Ryan sighs. He takes out the one book he owns that hasn't finished reading, sitting on the couch, and sets it on his lap.

He touches the spine of the book, smiles at the words printed in golden before opening the hardcover, reading the title page,

TALES  
OF THE  
GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

and finds his place inside the perfectly conserved pages.

He reads the final paragraph of page 81,

_The room in which I found myself was very large and excessively lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within--_

even as the words catch on his throat and he blinks, the words too blurry for him to make out as his eyes go out of focus. He pinches the bridge of his nose because he needs to do this, to read this book, to finish it before it's too late, before he can't understand printed words and they are nothing but pages with words he cannot touch. Two hundred and forty three pages of one of the writers that leave him breathless and he thinks for a second about the following year. About how the book will sit in the bookshelf without anyone ever touching it again, reading it, enjoying it like he is now, even if rushed by the clicking time, but the sand making its way through the hourglass.

He thinks about donating, perhaps, to people who will enjoy it as much as Ryan does at the moment. But that will be then, and this is now. _Now_ this is his book and he hugs it close to his chest and closes his eyes and feels a tendril of selfishness because it's his book and he doesn't want anyone else to touch it, not now, not until it's worthless to him.

He breathes in and out, then opens the book once again and read the last line he caught and understood, 

_The room in which I found myself was very large and excessively lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed--_

and imagines he can see what Poe writes and he can see and he can feel the oaken floors under his feet.

*****

Ryan tilts his head to the side, not being able to stop the small smile from his lips. He watches with avid affection the way Kirsten moves around the small apartment, making sure everything's working, going over the take-out menus they have in the top drawer of the counter, the source of their meals. Sandy's standing by the bookcase, Seth showing him the new book he's reading for British Author's. Seth has been talking nonstop about it, obviously having fallen for the author whose name Ryan can't remember.

It's nice and comfortable and almost homey, except for the fact that they aren't in Newport, they aren't in the kitchen or the den. They are in Berkeley, stuck in this city because Ryan can't fly, not without it being so difficult and almost unmanageable that Seth figured there was no point in flying out there on a Friday if they had to get back on a Sunday. Seth was right, of course, Seth has been right too often in the past couple of weeks. Ryan could only give in, sigh and shrug as he walked out of the living room and into his bedroom, where he stayed a good three hours, sulking.

And the parents agreed so easily it felt like they were actually used to this, to accommodating him and his limitations. Limitations, he thinks, the word bitter in his tongue. Limitations alright, and this is only the beginning of a long list he doesn't want to think about, let alone face.

"Ryan?"

He feels the hand on his shoulder before he hears the voice, recognizes the tone, the tinge of worry and concern in that voice he has come to acknowledge as his mother.

He looks over his shoulder, small smile on his lips, even if it does feel a bit strained. "Hey," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

She smiles at him, nothing but motherly concern all around her, and takes a seat next to him on the couch. Her hand moves down from his shoulder to his hand, and taking it in both of hers. "You haven't told us how your classes are."

And isn't exactly a question, and it isn't even what she really wants to ask, but she's clouding it with natural worry about him, and Ryan lets her.

He glances at Sophie, standing before the TV in the living room, both hands pressed against it, like she can read something he can't. He sighs. "I'm fine," he says, answer the question she didn't know how to formulate. "It's... not easy, but I'm fine."

She nods, understanding, and Ryan blinks, seeing only the blue of her irises but not the small lines around the corner of her eyes, or the way her lips are being pressed into a thin line. He wishes he could see her more, know her more than this, this empty shell of who he used to be.

He shrugs after a moment. "It's only three more weeks, two of those finals. I can handle it."

He watches her swallow thickly, and he can't read her like he used, like he had learned to in the years he had lived in her house, under her care. He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he can almost taste the coppery tang of blood, and he thinks he'll keep on biting it until he can't see any more.

He's thinking about nothing but darkness and finals and having to study and knowing his head will hurt most of that time when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He blinks, turning to look at the hand on his left shoulder, clutching at him, thumb on his collarbone. He hadn't seen it coming. He hadn't seen it in his almost fucked up peripheral vision.

He smiles at her, a tight, painful smile he can imagine looks anything but reassuring, and he can't, he can't... say that things will be fine because they won't. He can't say anything, but all there is to say is that he's going blind and he can't quite mouth those words.

He's still looking at her, right at her, when she pulls him to her chest. He resists for a second and wants nothing more than to pull back and lock himself in his room. He wants to sit against the door and keep the whole world out. Just like he did the day he found out. Just like he did the whole week after that. Just like he's been wanting to do ever since.

Instead, he sighs, slowly and controlled, and rests his forehead on Kirsten's shoulder.

She doesn't say anything, only places her right hand on the back of his neck, her skin warm against his. He breathes in her perfume, the one she wears on a daily basis and Ryan has come to know and recognize.

"Everything's going to be alright," she whispers against his ear, against his cheek.

He knows she's lying, and so does she. They both know, and somehow that makes it right in a way Ryan doesn't want to look too closely at.

She lets go of his hand and rubs his back slightly instead. His hands fall to his lap, and not knowing what to do with them. He places them under her arms, telling himself he's not holding on tight to her blouse.

He can almost hear her continuing to whisper nothings into his ear, against his cheek. Nothing but lies and platitudes, attempts to assuage the pain he feels, that he's come to know, gotten used to by now. It doesn't matter, whatever it is she says, it doesn't matter. She can tell him anything and everything, and he doesn't believe, because he knows. He knows he's running out of time. He just wishes it wasn't this fast.

Blinking rapidly, he squeezes hard one last time before pulling away. I'm okay, he wants to tell her. I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me, but that's a lie and he knows it and she knows it, so he doesn't say anything.

"Dayan?"

Ryan turns around, smiling at Sophie looking back up at him with deep blue eyes, perfect shade, matching Kirsten's, almost matching his.

"Sweetie," he smiles at her, picking her up. She settles against his chest, thumb in her mouth, and hums in her throat. Tired from the flight, probably, and Ryan kisses the top of her head, blond hair tickling his nose.

"We want to go to Europe for the summer."

Ryan blinks, tilting his head to the side, cheek against Sophie's hair. "Good," he says, because he knows both Kirsten and Sandy deserve it. A summer without worrying about the kids, about Sophie, just about them, alone. He nods. "Yeah, cool. Seth and I can watch--"

"Seth says he finishes on the 21st," Sandy says, and it's only then that Ryan notices him making his way from the bookshelf to the living room area, Seth shrugging as he does so. Ryan glances between Sandy and Seth. "But you finish on the 22nd, right?"

Ryan frowns, turning to look at Seth. Seth grins at him and Ryan knows in that second that things are not the way he imagines them to be. 

"Ryan? The 22nd, right? Structural analysis?"

Ryan glares at Seth and his questions, but nods. "Yeah, but what--?"

"Perfect," Kirsten says with a smile. "That's Friday, so, you can rest until Saturday. We can arrive on Friday afternoon, relax at the hotel. We'll meet you for breakfast, let you boys have your dinner together. I'll book us on a late Saturday flight." 

Ryan's frown depends, his gaze shifting from Kirsten to Sandy and then finally to Seth, who shrugs with a look that says a lot more than Ryan would have learned in mere words. Sophie shifts in his lap and he looks down at her, grinning, thumb still in her mouth. His chest grows tight in that second, telling himself that he has to save these looks, these memories, because he won't get them for long. Seth looks like he's accepted his fate even though he looks like he knows that neither of them is going to like the outcome. He swallows, glancing back at Kirsten.

"I don't understand," he says after a moment.

Kirsten chuckles, taking his hand in hers. "Well, Sandy and I thought it was time we," she glances over her shoulder before looking back at him, "all five of us, went on a vacation. And because it'd be the first time, we thought Europe would be perfect."

He knows he could ask, and he knows they would tell him. And he can almost hear the words coming from Sandy, a sad smile on his lips. _We want to see so much with you. We want to see so much with you while you can still see it._

Ryan swallows. He could ask, and they would tell him, but he doesn't really see the point in doing so.

After a moment, after a breath in which the light on his right -- somewhere on one o'clock, because he's long ago lost visual on two -- dims, the afternoon becomes night, he blinks. His eyes sting and he can feel a headache starting to form in between his eyebrows. The light is changing, and the moment Seth turns on a lamp, his eyes will sting even more and he might lose sight for a couple of seconds.

Flying will be a bitch, and his eyes will be tired from finals, and his head will probably feel like someone has taken a sledgehammer to it. He'd want nothing more than to sleep twenty hours in his bed, not in a plane, and he'll be cranky and pissed off, which means he won't say more than two words per hour, and--

But Kirsten's looking back at him with wide blue eyes, and Sandy's on his left, just on the edge of Ryan's field of vision. Sophie stands up on his lap and he places his hands on her sides just to keep her balanced. Seth takes a step forward and Ryan can see him more clearly now, and Seth looks back at him when Ryan turns to look at him.

He swallows, biting the inside of his cheek. He can almost feel the emptiness of a piece of paper under his fingers, words he will not be able to read, and he sighs, and nods.

"Yeah," he says after a moment, his lips curling upwards, "Europe would be perfect."

Kirsten smiles, and Ryan can barely see the redness in her eyes. Sandy places a hand on her shoulder, leaning forward to kiss the top of her head. Sophie gurgles and giggles and then places her wet hand on Ryan's cheek. Seth grins. Ryan sighs, smiles, and nods.

*****

The weekend before finals, a Saturday afternoon, Ryan studies with Tatiana and Eve and Claire and Charlie for both Mechanics of Fluids and Railroads, which will be on Tuesday and Wednesday. Construction Procedure on Friday, is actually quite easy, so he'll study it on his own on Thursday.

He reads the last line of definition of open channels and reads it again when he can't remember what it was he read in the first place. The words blur together and he pinches the bridge of his nose, hard, in a pathetic way to try and push back the headache he can feel in between his eyebrows.

"Ryan?"

He looks up, Tatiana looking back at him with a frown on her beautiful face. He bites the inside of his cheek, acknowledging the fact that he hasn't told them, hasn't said a word about anything regarding his eyes. They've asked about summer plans, and he's said he's going to Europe with Seth and the parents. Tatiana has begged for earrings of every mayor city in which Ryan can spare some euros, Eve wants tons of postcards and Claire wants a scarf, just one is more than enough. But he hasn't said a word about his eyes.

Charlie mentioned doing some AutoCAD work for a friend of his dad's, not quite an internship, but it's not pouring coffee for the civil engineer in charge either. Tatiana said she was hoping to find something to do during the summer, something in the general area of engineering. Ryan would have had an internship at the Newport Group. That had been the plan, actually, at the beginning of the school year. Ryan was going to work for the Newport Group this summer. That, of course, had taken second place to everything that has happened since then.

"I'm fine," he says with a tight smile. "Headache."

Tatiana nods, standing up as she does so. "God, I know. My brain is going to ooze from my eyes any second now."

"Are you sure you haven't lost it already?"

Tatiana looks over her shoulder at Claire, opening the fridge, and glaring at her. "Fuck you," she mouths, before taking out another can of coke from it. She hands it to Ryan with a smile. "Coke, that which fixes all that ails."

It's not the lack of sugar, or the tiredness, that hurts his eyes. Ryan takes the can away from Tatiana, opens it and takes a long swallow. They would have gone to his place, but he was scared they would find something with RP written on it. It's his very eyes.

"Thanks," he says, taking another long swallow. 

He thinks about telling them. He could tell them, right now, tell them about how he's not coming back next year, because what's the point. He could give up right this second, just give up and not give the. He sighs before he places the can back on the table. He could give up, right now, and lock himself in his room and wait until his eyes expire, but God, he doesn't think he has what it takes to do so.

Instead, he blinks furiously, pinches his nose once again. He focuses on the book in front of him, the common questions found in Mechanics of Fluids finals, and goes over them, over his book, over his notes, for as long as he humanly can.

*****

Ryan lies on his back, eyes blinking at the darkness around him. His eyes are used to the dim light coming from the street across the apartment building. He can see the edges of his dresser, of his closet, of the hamper, the chair he has in the corner and his three suitcases already packed before the closet. He can see it all in shadows and silhouettes. He can recognize them because he's familiar with them He can't see details nor colors, and he wonders that if he could recognize them by shape alone? Because this is what his life will be come. Nothing but shapes and silhouettes, if he's lucky. It will be nothing but darkness if he's not.

He closes his eyes shut, his hands clenching on the sheets of his bed. His palms are sweaty and his breathing labored in the warm weather.

It doesn't matter, he tells himself. It doesn't matter. He'll learn. He'll adapt. That's what he does. He'll take what he's given and do the best he can with that. He forged his own future in Harbor, he fought his demons after Marissa's death. He learned to have an open mind and make friends more easily than ever in Berkeley. He can take this and learn, move on. He will learn Braille and use a cane or a dog. He'll get programs for the computer. He'll buy new books. He'll find himself another fucking career--

Ryan coughs in the back of his throat, his hands clutching the sheets until he can't breathe, closes his eyes until his head hurts. He takes a breath through his mouth and it sounds as though his chest is filled with something he can't name.

His door makes a creaking sound and he opens his eyes, turning to his left to blink at his threshold. He can see another silhouette there, and this one he recognizes as well.

Ryan watches Seth make his way into the room. He shifts on the bed, moving to his right and pushing back the covers. Seth doesn't say anything, only crawls into the bed, pulling the covers up until mid chest. 

Ryan stays on his back, blinking up at the ceiling, hands loose now on top of the sheets, familiar in this, in them. Familiar in the simple act of Seth coming to his bedroom barefooted to crawl into his bed and say nothing, or very little, or a lot, and take it from there. To find answers in the short responses Ryan gives him back, or the in the silence that speaks louder than words.

He knows Seth has a lot he wants to say, just like he knows there is a lot he doesn't want to speak of. They can have this, their silence, just like they had comfortable words and safe subjects -- their finals, the stupid questions and searching for answers -- during the dinner they shared after calling the parents at their hotel room. And tomorrow they will leave with their suitcases for the hotel, have lunch with the parents before making their way to the airport for their flight at six.

They don't need to say anything, they don't need to do anything. Just lay here and breathe, let the darkness pull them into sleep like a lullaby, and hope for light in the morning.

Ryan feels a hand covering his left one, fingers spreading his own until they are intertwined. He breathes in shakily, his chest hurting, and then breathes out slowly. They don't need to do anything, but Ryan's grateful for Seth doing this.


	5. v.

This room, Ryan knows. This house, he's familiar with. He knows it takes twenty-nine paces from the elevator to the door. He knows how the door feels beneath his touch, his fingers. He knows this. He knows this place, his second home, because Newport will always be his first home.

His head hurts, but he has gotten used to it. He can feel tightness at the corners of his eyes, but he has gotten used to that too. His vision is blurry, like when he isn't wearing his glasses, like he's losing his sight one day at a time. Peripheral vision hasn't worsened but it takes longer to adjust to the changes in light, seconds ticking and his breath catching and he doesn't count them, he's conscientious about not counting them. He doesn't want to know.

He's standing by the window that looks out into the park. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly through his mouth. His hands are loose at his side, fingers opened and relaxed, and he takes his next breath without a problem.

He can hear someone walking down the hallway, outside the apartment. He hears those heavy steps until he hears them no more, and imagines is Mr. Carter, across the hall in 404, using his key and walking into his apartment. He can hear the music in Sandra's apartment, from 401, their next door neighbor. He can picture her running on the treadmill, black hair pulled back, the music so very loud in her ears, if he can hear it from here.

And then he hears another set of footsteps and he thinks he recognizes them, but he isn't sure. The footsteps are coming closer and closer, until they pause and Ryan thinks they have paused in his own door until he hears the sound of a key in the lock and the door opening.

A backpack falls down onto the chair next to the bookcase that's right by the door, the keys skid to a stop on top of the counter. Ryan swallows. These sounds he knows, he recognizes. These sounds he's very familiar with. These sounds--

Ryan opens his eyes, slowly, blinking into the darkness that's slowly falling around him. He blinks a couple more times, his eyes narrowing, and he can see the outline of Seth's body, hand on the edge of the counter, head tilted to the side. He can't see Seth's brown eyes, or the frown that he knows Seth's wearing. He can't see the tight grip of Seth's hand on the counter, or everything Seth wants to say and can't quite force himself to.

He lets the seconds tick by, doesn't count them, _can't_ count them. When his eyes finally allow him to see the difference in light and shade, he sighs, forcing his hands to stay loose on either side of him.

"How was the sign up?" His voice isn't rough in his ears, but it does sound disembodied, unfamiliar and almost unnatural.

Seth blinks, and Ryan knows a million and one things flicker across Seth's eyes, but his own eyes don't know that language anymore, can't read that language in this dim light. He doesn't turn, but he can imagine the afternoon slowly turning twilight through the window, the orange leaves falling from the trees in the park across from the apartment building. The wind has probably picked up, summer long gone, already giving free reign to autumn.

Seth doesn't answer and Ryan wants to push him back, place his hands on Seth's chest and shove him back. _Do this for me_ , he wants to tell Seth. _Pretend everything's fine. Pretend it means nothing that I didn't go to campus with you today. Pretend I'm going to study this semester. Pretend this isn't happening to me._

"I ran into everybody," Seth says, his voice low.

Ryan nods. Seth ran into his friends. Totally understandable. Sign up day, people meet for the first time since the beginning of summer. Students make their way back to their dorm rooms. 

Eve is probably sharing a dorm room with Lara, like she has the past two years. Lara's an old friend of Eve's, and they met in elementary school as far as Ryan knows, stayed best friends and chose to go to college together, even though Lara is majoring in Biology. Claire and Emily in their usual, very small, one bedroom apartment. Ryan hopes they invite him and Seth to the wedding. Tatiana and Patrick in the penthouse of a high class apartment building, Patrick's father's gift to them, even if the guy wanted his son to go to Yale like him. Patrick always says he traded down, and Tatiana always hits him on the shoulder.

If he had gone to sign up for this semester, he would have run into them there. He would have seen at least one, maybe all of them, and they would have talked about their respective summers. He can't help but want to know about Charlie's internship, if Tatiana found anything and what the rest did. He's only known them two years, and he can't believe he misses them already.

"You should tell them."

Ryan sighs at Seth's voice, glancing over his shoulder at the window. The sun is slowly setting, nothing but oranges and pinks and yellows in the sky. 

"Ryan--"

"Kirsten called," Ryan says, not turning back. He likes those colors. He really likes those colors. He remembers, sitting by the side of the pool, watching the sun go down. He remembers, sitting on the catamaran, nothing but ocean wherever he could turn, and watching different shades of oranges and pinks and yellows filling the sky.

"Oh. What did she say?"

He shrugs. "Asked about us, about things." Mentioned the Orange County Braille Institute Center. Again. Mentioned moving back home. Again. 

"She asked?"

He knows what Seth's talking about. Of course she had asked. Ever since the last day of their summer in Europe, all Kirsten had talked about was blindness and Braille and guide dogs and a driver and surgery and--

"I take it you--?"

"I'm not moving back home," Ryan says through gritted teeth. He thinks he can take a lot of things -- he knows he can take a lot of things -- but he could never handle going back to Newport, moving there after this, after having all this and not--

"I know."

Silence falls around them, and it seems to fit, in a way. To fit them. To fit him.

He doesn't know why, but he remembers standing there, in that very same spot, the day Kirsten showed them the apartment. She had chosen it from a list her real state agent gave her. It was the best apartment of them all: two bedrooms, nice size living room area and kitchenette they never used except for the fridge. He stood in that very same spot, folded his arms and gazed out into the park, very much like he is doing right now.

"Ryan, I'm gonna--"

His jaw clenches effortless and his nails dig into his forearms. He knows what Seth's trying to tell him. "Yeah," he hisses, and he can feel his temples start to hurt by the pressure on his jaw. He consciously opens his mouth, feels his teeth tingle.

He closes his eyes in preparation for the change of light. He hears the click of the light switch in the living room, and then dots and rays of light shining brightly even against closed eyelids. His head starts to pound and his hands move to his eyes, heels digging as hard as they can.

He breathes through his mouth, his chest starting to hurt. Fuck, that hurts. He rubs his hands over his face, his eyes closed so tightly shut, he can feel the pulse in his temples. There's another click, and that's probably the light in the kitchen. Might as well just turn on both.

"Ryan--?"

"Call for pizza, will you?" He's going to be useless for way too long, seconds he refuses to count, to acknowledge in a number. He wants nothing more than to step back until he can feel the wall against his shoulder blades, against his back. He wants something to hold onto, something--

A hand on his left shoulder, the other on his right elbow. "Hey, hey. It's okay."

Something in the back of Ryan's mind wants to push Seth away, to jerk back and move away, move away, out, out OUT--

But he's weak and pathetic and he can't help but be grateful at Seth's touch, at him somehow righting his axis once again. He takes in a shaky breath, a sound familiar in the back of his throat, and his body wants nothing more than to take a step forward and hide his face in the hollow of Seth's neck and breathe in and forget and let go--

His hands fall to his sides, curling into a tight fist, but Seth's hold stays, solid and strong.

He turns his face away, away from Seth, toward the window. He can feel his face contorting in a grimace, in pain, and of all the things that's happening to him right now, he doesn't want Seth to see him like this.

"Ryan--"

Seth's voice is low and understanding, reassuring and comforting, and God, Ryan can feel his body shivering with the need for physical contact. He's not this person. He's never been this person, and he has no idea why he's become this person now.

Seth's hand moves from his shoulder to where his neck meets his chest, thumb on his collarbone, and Ryan bites his lower lip. He doesn't lean into the touch out of sheer force of will.

"Ryan--"

Seth's voice makes his chest feel warm and cold at the same time, and all Ryan can do is shake his head. "Call for pizza," Ryan repeats, needing the time, the space, the buffer.

Seth doesn't answer, but Ryan can imagine him nodding, and with one squeeze of his hand on his neck, the hand falls away. A second later, the one on his elbow is gone as well. Ryan breathes a sigh of relief -- relief for what, he doesn't want to know -- and forces his fingers to uncurl.

Ryan turns around as he hears Seth moving in the kitchen, and this time he faces the window. The sky is still filled with pastel colors. He sighs, folding his arms across his chest. 

He hears Seth placing their order and then the soft click as the phone is placed back on the cradle. He waits by the window, not sure what he's waiting for, not sure what he expects.

He still doesn't know what it is he wanted when he hears Seth sit down on the couch, and then the low volume of the TV. He sighs once again, his hands digging into his forearms for a second before letting go, and turning around. He sits next to Seth, his knee touching Seth's, and tilts his head back, his eyes closing.

They have dinner in silence, still sitting on the couch, something on the TV Ryan doesn't recognize.

"You should tell them," Seth says to break the silence. "You should tell them." A pause, and Ryan's about to say something, anything, when Seth finishes, "They're your _friends_."

You are my friend, he thinks, and they are my classmates. But Ryan knows that's not true. That stopped being true long ago. Seth's more than his friend, has always been; and they became his friends sometime in the two years they've studied together, and he didn't even noticed.

He swallows tightly, his hand gripping the slice of pizza until he feels the grease oozing over his skin. He nods. "Yeah," he says, his voice low, seeming to match the pace of the night. "I will."

And he will. And he knows this, he just-- He just doesn't think he can do it now.

"Soon," Ryan adds with a breath.

Seth nods, Ryan can almost see the movement out of the corner of his eyes. Or he can't see it and he just knows it's there, he isn't sure. His peripheral vision is going to hell much faster than the rest of his eyesight.

Ryan turns around, tries to watch the TV, but he knows the only reason it's on is because Seth knows he doesn't want to talk. He realizes he can't quite see the faces on the screen in between one breath and the next. His chest goes cold, and this is also something he's getting used to, this feeling of pain and aching that comes from his veins to the air over his skin.

He thinks about his dark tinted glasses, lying on his desk, on the other side of the living room. He thinks about them, about how they are supposed to help with the change of light, make it easier for him. How they lasted a good week before they became useless, not strong enough, and how he's changed them five times in the three months before going to Europe, how he doesn't want to change them again. They'll be just as useless in another week, so why the hell bother?

He swallows, leans back against the couch, and takes a bite of the rapidly cooling pizza. He thinks about college, about the Berkeley campus only five minutes from there. He thinks about how he would have been taking Structural Analysis II this semester, Soil Mechanics, Construction materials, two labs. He thinks about everything he won't ever learn, about the two years he wasted wanting to be something he was never meant to be.

He bites hard into the pizza, feels his jaw hurt, his temples pound with his heartbeat, and pretends he can see the outline of the faces on the screen.

*****

They pause for a second inside of the building, the wide glass panel doors before them, the optometrist's office on the second floor. They pause, mostly because Seth notices the way Ryan clenches his jaw, the tightness at the corners of Ryan's eyes. Seth sighs, his hold on Ryan's elbow tightening for a second.

"We can wait," Seth says with a small smile, squeezing Ryan's elbow for a second.

Ryan shakes his head. "No, I'm fine."

Seth swallows. _You're anything but fine_ , he wants to say, but knows better. "Ryan--"

"I'm fine," Ryan hisses through his teeth, turning around and glaring at Seth. "I'm fine, lets just--"

"We can stay back," Seth insists, wanting nothing more than to take a step back, and another, until they are back in the first floor waiting room.

Ryan shakes his head. "No, let's get this over with."

"Ryan--"

"I said no."

Seth sighs, Ryan's tone more than enough to stop any other words that might come from his lips. Ryan said "no", and that's all there is to it. "Okay," he says reluctantly. "Okay, yeah. Whatever you say."

He swallows once again before nodding, squeezing Ryan's shoulder. He wants to ask if Ryan's ready for him to push open the doors, for the two of them to step outside, into the too bright mid afternoon light, but he knows his words will not be kindly received. He squeezes again, and Ryan nods, and that's enough of a cue for Seth.

Seth pushes open the glass doors, and the light blinds him for a second, his left hand -- the one not holding tightly at Ryan -- goes to shield his eyes. He turns around, glancing at Ryan. Ryan puts on his dark tinted glasses, but Seth knows from previous experiences that they are very little help with such harsh changes in light.

Taking in a shaky breath, he moves his left hand to Ryan's right shoulder at seeing Ryan's lips form nothing but a thin pink line. He turns his body around, trying to shield Ryan from the relentless sunlight. "Ryan--"

"How far away is the car?"

Far enough, Seth knows, and so does Ryan. And he could have brought the car around, but Ryan refused. And they could have stayed for a little while, even if it was pointless because the change of light would have been the same. He could be of more help to Ryan than a single hand on his elbow.

"I can--"

Ryan shakes his head, cutting off Seth's offer, again, to bring the car around. "No, no, I remember. The parking lot is to the left."

Seth nods, even if Ryan can't see him. "Yeah, it is." His left hand, the one on Ryan's shoulder, wants nothing more than to move down to Ryan's hand, take the curled fist in his and let loose the fingers. Instead, Seth bites back the desire to touch, to protect.

"Okay. Good."

Seth's certain he can hear Ryan's mind ending that line with _I can do this._

Watching with nothing but apprehension, Seth sees Ryan swallow thickly before nodding, slightly, nothing but the barest movement of Ryan's chin. Ryan takes a step forward, Seth matching it. They are a good three steps from the end of the porch, and Seth tells Ryan so.

"One more step," Seth whispers under his breath, Ryan's forearm taut under his touch.

Ryan nods, taking one hesitant step before lifting his other foot, his right foot, and holding it there, in mid air, in between the floor they are on and the step down. Seth feels like something might break inside him at the uncertainty in Ryan's every movement.

When Ryan places his right foot down, he stumbles, and Seth pulls him back by the arm, steadying him, until Ryan has his other foot down. Seth breathes through his mouth as Ryan's lips thin even more. Ryan miscalculated, that's all. He miscalculated, but still all Seth can hear is the beating of his heart in his ears, in his temples.

"Ryan--?"

"Where's the car?"

Seth sighs, his hand on Ryan's forearm moving down to the inside of his elbow. The parking lot is on their left, and their car can't be more than fifty feet. "Come on, I'll--"

But Ryan jerks his arm away, seeming to want to take a step back but stopping himself from doing so. Seth can feel his chest tightening, fear making its way from the pit of his stomach to his throat. He wants nothing more than to reach out and take Ryan in his arms and, God, just make it better, make it okay, make it right once again but he can't, just fucking can't--

"Ryan," Seth pleads with his voice, and after a moment, the fight in Ryan seems to seep away, and he sighs, letting his left arm fall down to his side.

"The car," Ryan says with a soft voice, nothing but a whisper, and Seth nods.

Seth reaches forward, his hand hesitant until it connects with Ryan's soft skin and Ryan's almost pliable in his arms, letting Seth take hold of his forearm and steer him to the left, covering the fifty feet to the car.

Seth unlocks the doors, and Ryan moves forward with more confidence this time, his hand reaching for the handle as if he can actually see it there. Seth hopes Ryan can see it there. Seth stands by Ryan's side until Ryan's seated comfortably and is pulling the seatbelt on. Only then does Seth sigh in relief and make his way around to the driver's seat.

He starts the engine, and when he glances at Ryan out of the corner of his eyes -- like Ryan used to do, all those years ago; like Ryan used to until seven months ago -- Ryan's looking out the window, encased in his own world.

Seth focuses on his breathing throughout the drive back to the apartment, on his breathing and the road and not turning around or glancing at Ryan. Because Ryan might not be paying attention to him, but God, this is Ryan, and Ryan knows when Seth's being an idiot and looking at him.

The ride home passes quicker than Seth would have thought, and when he parks in their space in the basement parking lot, he can't help but sigh and look around the dim place. God, it's going to be hell on Ryan.

Seth turns around, expecting to see Ryan with his lips in a line, but instead, Ryan already has his dark glasses on and is opening his door even as Seth blinks and fumbles with the car keys.

He wants to call out for Ryan, but somehow, Seth knows that if he does, it will not be well received either. He locks the car in a hurry, clicks on the alarm and makes his way around, reaching for Ryan but stopping himself on the way.

Ryan's walking almost steadily, pausing only every five or six steps, before looking around and continuing on his way. Seth closes his eyes for a second, then opens them and finds his place by Ryan's side, ready to reach out if Ryan stumbles.

They don't say anything until they reach the elevator, and Ryan presses the button with confidence, even if Seth can see the tightness in the back of his shoulder, the set of his jaw.

"You okay?" Seth asks, finally, because the curiosity is too much for him, because concern is too much for him.

Ryan's jaw seems to contract slightly, a tendon making its presence known. Ryan nods. "I'm fine," he hisses, and Seth can almost hear the grinding of Ryan's teeth against one another.

And yeah, of course Ryan's fine. Of course. No other way around. Just dandy, right, Seth thinks bitterly, because it's not an everyday occurrence that you're told your visual field is seventeen in one eye and twenty one in the other. And it wouldn't fucking sting so much if Seth didn't know that twenty is legally blind, literally blind.

But Seth doesn't say anything, knows that anything he does say will come up short and fall into thin air, into the waves he can almost see in the background when he glances at Ryan.

They wait in silence until the doors slide open and Ryan walks inside, hand shielding his eyes, even with the dark glasses and the not so bright light in car. Seth leans back against one of the walls, head tilted back, and does not look at Ryan with every other breath until they reach the fourth floor.

When the doors slide open once again, Ryan takes an almost confident step out, hesitating only for a second before he turns left. Seth hovers by Ryan's side and doesn't care if Ryan lashes out at him, as long as he can _fucking touch him_.

He can see the way Ryan's mouth is slightly parted, and though he can't really hear the words, Seth thinks Ryan's counting his steps. Ryan pauses before their door and turns around, taking his glasses off as he does so. Seth can see the tightness in the corners of brilliant blue eyes before Ryan takes out his keys and pushes the door open.

"Ryan--"

Seth's words end there, in his throat, on his tongue, because even with the change of light, Ryan darts inside with long strides, turns right and two seconds later Seth can hear the bedroom door slamming close.

Seth sighs, sagging against the kitchen counter. He throws his keys onto the counter before turning around and closing the front door. Doorknob still in hand, Seth closes his eyes, tight, nothing but pressure in between his eyebrows and acid burning behind his eyes. He leans forward, forehead against soft wood, and tells himself to breathe.

*****

Ryan can see the map, nothing but lines and latitude and longitude, nothing but blue and oranges and pinks, names and places he was supposed to go to, to see. He can see the Tahiti map and feel coldness in his chest.

His fingers dig into his palms, into the creases of his skin.

He sits there, and he can see the state line in his mind, the line dividing Newport and Chino, his past and his present, and his future is dying a slow death in his hands, in between his fingers, through the sand he can't quite catch.

The laughter penetrates the silence of his mind, nothing but laughter. Kirsten's high pitched chuckles, the way her eyes shift and clear, Sandy's smile that can turn into laughter in a second, and the way Seth seems to laugh with his whole body, how Sophie has that too, how beautiful she is when she's laughing. And the very memory is nothing but joy he can't keep, it's being inches and miles away from it, from nothing but cold ground under him and feeling himself being picked up and left alone in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of darkness, in the middle of what's now his life.

He presses his lips so tightly in between his teeth, his jaw hurts, his eyes sting and his head pounds. He can hear the numbers in his mind, again and again, numbers under twenty and just over, and it whispers of distant dark truths, of nothing but blindness that has come too quickly, that falls as silence in between voices.

Sound and touch and taste and smell are all he has, sight has long ago died and he watched it die a slow and painful death in between Italy and Spain. He can see nothing but shades and shadows and everything is blurred, as if he has been crying, crying and crying, like he wants to do at the moment. He shoves a fist into his mouth, legs extended on the floor, and he leans forward until his forehead touches his thigh.

Too fast, too fast, he knows. The doctor said it himself. Too fast, it wasn't supposed to happen like this.

 _You can have years_ , she had said. _You can have two, three, five years. Don't worry. It won't happen overnight. It'll give you time to adjust._

Too little time. It was too little time. It was...

Kirsten's laughter and Sandy's smile and Sophie with her thumb in her mouth and the way Seth talks with his hands and fingers, and those memories are nothing but that, memories, ghosts without voices he used to know, used to be able to see. Their words in his memory are like music in between Polaroid shots of his life, of every thing he has ever seen. Sunsets shared with Theresa when he used to love her, with Marissa when she was everything there was to think about, with Lindsay when she used to smile at him like he was the only thing in the world.

Sunsets spent in the backyard, feet dangling in the pool, day turning into night, warmth going away to bring a chilly breeze with the smell of boats and catamarans and the dream of Tahiti, one day, not soon enough, not too far away.

It's all a dream, a memory, a nightmare. It's everything he never did, everything he ever saw. And he wonders if he'll ever forget the fall of Kirsten's hair around her face, the movement of Sandy's hands as he cuts bagels and spreads cheese inside, the way Sophie used to fit in the crook of his elbow, small and fragile, how Seth looks lying down on his bed in Newport and staring at his ceiling. How--

He shakes his head and memories are nothing but noise, darkness and coldness and his arms used to be warm, once upon a time. Now, it's all noise. Noise, noise, noise, noise, _noise_ \--

Memories and shots are noises and sounds look like colors and everything is wrong, nothing is right anymore. There is no top or bottom, there is nothing but the cold floor beneath him, a wall against his back, his dresser to his right shoulder, the door somewhere to his left, his bed ten feet from him, and dark and dark and dark while rays of light play tricks on his mind, on his brain, with his eyes -- pointless worthless fucking muscles that don't know the difference between light and shade.

His eyes are closed and his face is hidden in between his hands and memories are running free because this is all he has now, all he has now, memories and miles and thoughts and houses and colors and ground and warmth and coldness.

And he's dreaming, he's dreaming, he has to, because these kinds of things don't happen to people. It happens in the movies and stupid afterschool specials but it doesn't happen to people you know and it specially doesn't _happen to you, you motherfucker._

The last place he left off, the last place he visited, a mixture of Italy and Spain and France and Berlin and Europe and Kirsten laughing and Ryan finding out her French is not as good as her Italian and Sandy knowing more than just a few words in Spanish and Ryan remembering the insults Theresa and Arturo taught him, Sophie trying to copy the words she heard around her, not quite a language, not one they knew of, and Seth pouting because his high school French is pretty pointless and his Spanish is even worse.

He finds the map of Tahiti in his mind -- a promise, a compromise, his past and his present -- and draws a straight line, over rivers, farms and state lines, the distance from where he was and where he is now, and it's only finger lengths that he can see. He touches, he thinks, he dreams, he touches Tahiti and the promise and the pledge, and finds Seth's face and it hurts, God, it fucking hurts because he has to give up, give in, he's not winning this fight, he's only finding flaws in his plan, nothing but ghosts without voices and colors and dreams and memories and he thinks, he thinks, he dreams and he sees, only he doesn't see, but he sees, God, he can almost see and reach out and _touch--_

Until exhausted, Ryan closes his eyelids.

*****

Ryan blinks, he knows this, he blinks. He knows the action and the reaction, he can feel the fluttering of his eyelids, the touch of skin against skin, but even as he does, as he keeps on blinking, there's nothing. There's nothing there for him to see. Nothing but pitch black and black and darkness.

He opens his arms wide at his side but he can't see them, and he can barely feel them and for a second he wonders if they are there, if along with his sight he has' lost his limbs as well and fuck, where the hell is the light?

He reaches forward, hoping to feel something, anything. He tries to remember where he was the last time he was anywhere and he remembers sitting on a chair with an armrest and Seth sitting somewhere to his right and hearing words, words and words but they were meaningless, they all were, except for the fact that their meaning cut him to the bone. He remembers, fuck, he remembers sitting there and hearing Dr. McKay, hearing her and blinking and not turning around because he knew he would die if he saw Seth's face, or not see Seth's face, so he didn't. He didn't turn around, he only sat there and heard Dr. McKay sentence him to twenty to life without light.

And then, and then... then is nothing but a blur of feeling and desperation and fear and knowing the time has come to an end, that it wasn't going to happen overnight, but fuck if it hasn't happened already, you're done, you're done, you're done.

He turns his head around, trying to see something that's not pitch black, and for a second he's reminded of sitting on the edge of the pool and looking up at the already dark sky and feeling alone, so alone, so fucking alone, and then Kirsten would turn on her light and Seth would make his way out of the kitchen to the pool house and catch him in between, and he wasn't alone anymore, not anymore and God, he wants that. He wants that, right now, this second.

He takes a step forward, thinks about taking a step forward even as he does so, because where the hell is he and where the hell is he going and where would he--

He can feel his heart beating in his throat, not knowing what's on his right and to his left and behind him and before him. Not knowing where he is or where he's going, not knowing anything because he can't fucking _see--_

He never knew feelings could be entities, things that breathed and lived and pulsed along with the movement in your veins, but they are. Fear is a presence of mind and body, is a being that stands right behind him, breathing down his neck and ears, making itself known. It almost speaks to him, but if it does, Ryan doesn't hear it, or can't hear it, or refuses to hear it, he's not sure.

And then there's Despair, of course, second cousin of Fear. They used to hang out together when they were young, when humanity was starting to develop, but then, of course, The Stone Age came around and they decided to go their separate ways, they'll talk to one another when they run into the mass murders.

He can feel Despair standing somewhere to the side, waiting for its turn, waiting for Ryan to--

Waiting for something, that's for sure, but not even Ryan is certain of what that is.

He takes another step forward, hands outstretched, trying to reach but always coming up short, like his eyes against a fight it was impossible for them to win but they tried still, God, how they tried to fight the change in light and dark.

And he can start feeling Despair taking over, slowly and so very slowly, because there's nothing there, wherever he is, there's only nothingness around him, and fuck if he doesn't know what is top or bottom, and then he takes another step forward and hits something--

And the next thing he knows he's falling forward until he hits something with his hands and knees. His hands ache and sting, and he must have a cut because, shit, that fucking hurts. And he wants to take another step, to find something, something to touch that's not the fucking floor and know where he is and where he went and what happened after hearing his sentence and---

But he's on the floor and Fear and Despair have become one with him and God, he wants nothing more than to call for Kristen and Sandy, for Sophie, for Seth, his body shaking with the need to be taken in arms and comforted and lied to when they tell him that everything will be okay, everything will be just fine. But he cant, no, no, he can't, and he shakes his head because he's not ten, damn it, he doesn't need to crawl into his parents' bed. He stopped that when he was seven and his dad gave Ryan the back of his hand before pushing him out of the room. No, no, he can find his way through this -- whatever _this_ is -- before two seconds tick by and he thinks, well, _fuck it._

"Kirsten!"

And that's when _Panic_ makes its presence known, because he can't hear his very own words in his very own ears. He can't hear anything and he can't see anything and for a second, for a breath, he wonders if this is how it feels to be dead.

That's when Panic takes over and decides nothing is good enough, nothing is small enough, and he starts screaming at the top of his lungs, his hands aching as they clutch at the unforgiving floor and his temples hurt from the exertion of screaming at decibels unknown to mankind and yet, and yet he can't hear a fucking thing he's saying.

But he screams. God, he screams.

"Kirsten! Sandy! Kirsten!!! Kirsten!! Sophie! Sandy!! KIRSTEN!!! Seth! Seth!!! Seth! Kirsten! _SETH!!!!_ "

And he'd keep on screaming his head off, his eyes off, if there suddenly weren't hands on his shoulders, on his face, at his side, on his body, touching and pulling and touching and voices, voices, God, he can _almost_ hear voices around him and then it's just one voice, one voice, and one touch and he sags as the fight leaves his body and Panic shrugs and takes a step back and then it's nothing but hands on him and somewhere boney to rest his face, to hide his face, and cloth under his hands as he clutches with everything he has.

He thinks that he breathes, he doesn't know, he thinks that he blinks, but he doesn't know that either. A few breaths and blinks later, he can lift his face from where its hidden and he can search in the distance of where he was and reach out this time and touch something solid, realize he isn't falling anymore, that he was caught.

He looks up and he knows what he's seeing, Seth's face barely even inches from his even if it's nothing but dark shades and silhouettes and a touch that lingers on his cheek as it moves down to his chin.

"Hey, there," Seth says and Ryan can hear it this time, and he can hear the catch in Seth's voice, the disbelief and something that brushes by without quite pausing.

Ryan breathes in again, and he blinks, and he looks around him and it's only then that he notices that he's kneeling on his bed, his bed, and Seth's kneeling beside him and he has one arm around Ryan's waist, hand resting on the small of Ryan's back, fingers spread wide.

He breathes in and something is tight in his chest, in his arms and hands and he tries to remember the drunken memories he has, nothing but scattered thoughts and flashes of light and dark.

He believes he awakes only when thought claims him in desperate need and the words resound through his mind, not in rightness, in anything but that--

_Visual field of seventeen in your left eye and twenty-one in your right one. I'm sorry, Ryan, but you know twenty or under is legally blind. We can--_

\-- and he can understand the words he hears, even accept them in a way, because he knew this was coming. God, he knew, from the moment he stood before the Piazza and looked up and felt his eyes sting and accept that his peripheral was shot to hell, the blinders were on for real this time.

"Ryan?"

"How--?" But his voice is rough against his ears, and for a second he wonders if it's because they lost the habit of hearing anything but he shakes his head at that.

No, no, that was a dream. A nightmare. That was his personal hell in stark blankness, nothing but darkness and silence.

Ryan clears his throat and tries again, and this time his voice doesn't feel like sandpaper on his skin. "What--?" He pauses, trying to understand.

Dr. McKay, he remembers. Dr. McKay and the way to the car, feeling his jaw hurting all the way to his temples, it was so tightly clenched. Looking out the window of the passenger seat and remembering a time when he could drive, when he could hold his thoughts in his hands as he held the steering wheel with practiced ease. Counting his paces to the elevator, down the hallway and into his shelter, into his home. Making his way to his bedroom and slamming the door behind him and then...

Then... He remembers maps and state lines and laughter and feeling so very tired, he thinks he must have fallen asleep sitting down on the floor.

He turns to look at Seth, and Seth's looking back at him, blurriness of black and white and maybe some grays in between. He swallows, sighs, sitting down on his heels, once again noticing that he was kneeling on his bed, his legs a tangle in between the sheets, and Seth very much kneeling before him.

He tries to turn his legs around, straighten them before him, but he's in between the sheets and Seth's kneeling on top of them and it just seems like too much effort. He frowns, thinking about last night -- last night? earlier tonight? -- and coming up short right after state lines of where he was and where he would be.

"I--" don't remember, he wants to say, but sighs instead.

Seth shrugs, shifting until he's sitting on the bed, legs crossed before him and how Seth does that with a grace he didn't use to have, Ryan doesn't dare question. 

"I came looking for you," he says shrugging again, "for dinner. You were in bed, fast asleep. I only helped with your clothes."

And it's then that Ryan looks down at himself, in nothing but boxers, and he glances at Seth, who's wearing boxers and undershirt. "Oh."

"I didn't want to wake you. I asked you if you were hungry, you said no. I don't know if you really heard me--"

He probably wasn't even paying attention. He probably wasn't even in his right mind, in his body at the time, he was too tired from having an almost break down.

Because, yeah, he knows that wasn't even close to him breaking down. Hell, no. When he does, because come hell or high water, he knows he will break down before the end of his sight, when he breaks out, he'll know. Everyone will know.

He'll break down. _I'll break down_ , he wants to say to Seth. _I came close today. But it's gonna happen. I'm going to breakdown. Please don't be here when it happens._ Ryan sighs, shaking his head, one hand still clutching at the side of Seth's shirt.

He swallows, lets his hand fall loose and to his side, and blinks and tries to think, to remember. Fear and sound and silence and black and that's all he can remember from his dream, even if he can still feel his heart pounding in his chest and his palms sweating.

"I..." But Ryan has no idea what he wants to say, what he was about to say, and closes his mouth with a sigh.

Seth shifts, pulling the covers from underneath him and to the side, making it possible for Ryan to pull his legs around and stretch them before him, and then lie down on his back. And in a second he's back in nothing but blackness, nothing but a sense of loss and no top or bottom, no right or left, vertigo is all he knows. He's exhausted and woozy and so very confused, and he gropes out for the one thing that can make it all right, make it all settle around him, make him belong.

"Seth?" He gasps in sudden panic, his hands bumping Seth's chest, gripping a tight fistful of white undershirt, his other hand reaching for something and then being clasped in a sure fingers.

"Hey, hey," Seth says, and Ryan can hear the words, feel the breath leaving soft lips and make its way to his ears before he can feel pressure against his side, on his left arm and he can breathe in and out. "I'm here, I'm right here. I've got you."

Ryan makes a broken sound in the back of his throat and this he remembers from his nightmare, the feeling of loss and disassociation and helplessness and loneliness. He breathes in but it comes out in short pants, right hand clutching tightly at Seth's chest, at Seth's shirt, and his hold is so tight, so close to his own chest, that Seth's half lying on his side to be able to cover him and hold him and have him.

And then Ryan blinks and the light is kind to him and his eyes remind him that sight is a gift to him, a gift that has an expiration date that's soon approaching. He can see Seth for a second, for a blink and the next, and he exhales through his mouth, loving the way Seth smiles at him, the way Seth's hands reach out holding in, holding out, just holding him.

Ryan just lies there, on his bed, with his hand clutching tightly at Seth's shirt and Seth shifting but not pulling away, not saying a word, waiting for Ryan to find his footing, to find his axis and his compass on his own. When he does, when he recognizes the edges and corners of his bedroom and knows that the dim light coming in is from the pulled curtains of his window that look out to the park, his fingers loosen, but don't let go entirely.

Seth nods, and Ryan can feel the bed shifting and dipping at the movement, or the shifting of Seth's legs, of his weight, until he's not so much lying over Ryan and Ryan's not on his back but on his left side. Seth still has Ryan's left hand in his, and Ryan still has Seth's shirt in his right one.

"It's okay," Seth whispers softly, words out of his mouth and Ryan nods, because it is. Because he might forget the words and the sights and even the sounds, but it's okay because when he fell, he was caught. Seth caught him.

They lie on the bed, quietly, in silence, and they are so close, Ryan can almost breathe in the air leaving Seth's lungs.

The minutes tick by, and Ryan can almost feel himself starting to relax, to breathe easier, his heart no longer pounding in his chest. He can feel the warmth from Seth's body, not five inches from his, t-shirt still held loosely in his hand.

"Ryan?"

"Hmm," he whispers as he sighs, eyes closed, and this time, when the darkness comes, it doesn't feel as if he's being stabbed

"This is the third nightmare in a week."

Ryan swallows painfully, his throat closed, and he knows Seth and he knows exactly where Seth's going with this. "Seth--"

"Maybe mom was right," Seth finishes before Ryan has time to speak over him.

"Seth--" Don't do that, don't tell me that. I can't... Ryan can't help but think. "I'm not going back to Newport," he hisses through his teeth, letting go of Seth's shirt and pulling his hand back from Seth's touch, even if the action pains him, makes something inside him turn cold and whimper.

Seth groans in the back of his throat, a sound Ryan's familiar with, has heard it as many times as he's heard Seth whine. Then there are hands pulling his own away from his chest, and covering them, caressing them, in between fingers and touch and Ryan can't help but sigh and close his eyes in content.

"Third nightmare, Ryan." Seth says, squeezing his hands, holding them tight even though Ryan's not going to pull away again. "Three. Count them--"

Ryan grimaces, turning his face away because he doesn't remember his nightmares, he never tends to. But he wakes up knowing he didn't sleep right, itching somewhere on his back and knowing he dreamt something he doesn't want to remember.

"--and don't give me that face. Of course I heard you, I'm across the hall and we leave our doors opened, you idiot."

He doesn't want to smile, really doesn't, because he's pissed off and two minutes ago he was on the verge of the abyss that has a name and it's called Nervous Breakdown. But God, Seth has always made him smile, even when he doesn't want to, even when Seth's actually pissing him off, Seth can make him smile at the oddest of times.

And the _you idiot_ at the end of that sentence? That's Seth, through and through.

Seth laughs, a sound that Ryan relates with laughter through his whole body, laughter in his eyes and cheekbones and lips. Ryan sighs, reminded that he has to cherish these memories, that he has to stack them up as high as they can go, that he was to watch carefully, with the right light, so he can remember.

When Seth stops laughing, when Ryan can feel Seth squeezing his hands in his, and he blinks, trying to see Seth's face and seeing nothing but outline --

And be grateful for that, Ryan, because that's all you can hope to see, now, isn't it? Nothing but outlines. Be grateful for that much.

He swallows, wanting nothing more than to pull his hands away from Seth's, but he can't, because he desires the touch, the human contact, more than anything at the moment.

"I'm just saying," Seth says, and his voice is sober and serious and that sobers Ryan up faster than his inner voice ever could. "I heard you screaming, Ryan. Let me worry, okay?"

Screaming? God, he doesn't remember that. He doesn't remember much of his-- dream, nightmare, whatever -- but he certainly doesn't remember screaming.

\-- maps and state lines and Tahiti and Kirsten and Seth and Sophie and Sandy and Seth --

Right. No wonder. He remembers the feeling of Seth's name on his tongue, the disassociation of feeling it rolling off his lips and yet not hearing it--

 _Oh._ Okay. Now he remembers.

Ryan swallows, feeling his cheeks heat up at the embarrassment, picturing Seth lying on his bed, totally asleep, and being awakened by the sound of his own named screamed from Ryan's lips and-- Fuck, yeah. Cheeks heating up, alright.

"I'm s--"

But Ryan can't finish his words, his hand squeezed tightly, Seth shifting on the bed. Ryan holds still in mid word, almost waiting for Seth to lean forward, to bring their bodies together, and yet not waiting for it at the same time. His breath is in his throat and, waiting, waiting--

"Don't," Seth says, finally, and Ryan sighs, something in his chest and stomach not quite uncoiling. "I'm just, you know, worried."

Ryan nods, even though he doesn't know, doesn't quite understand. He wants to say, I'm fine, but he's never lied to Seth's face, not like that, and he doesn't want to start now.

"It's just--" Seth starts, and ends there, and Ryan doesn't have to hear the rest of the words.

He remembers Kirsten's case, he remembers her words about how the Braille Institute has a center in Orange County, not five minutes from Newport and how Ryan could move into the spare room that never quite became his, the one next to Seth's bedroom. How he could stay there while he studies and adapts to everything, how they could find him the best optometrist in the county and how--

But it didn't matter. All the things Kirsten thought, knew, were best for him because Ryan wasn't giving up his house, his life, as well as his sight.

"Maybe, you know, just maybe, it'd be easier--"

But Ryan shakes his head, hands clenching into tight fists even in between Seth's own. "No, no. I can't--"

And his words end there because that's all he can say. He can't-- He just can't. He can't give up what little control he has over what he has left of his life. Fuck, he won't. Even if... even if he has to take a fucking bus to wherever he has to go, fuck, he _won't surrender._

He swallows. "I can't."

Ryan can only see the outline of Seth's face when he nods, and he sighs, relieved, because Seth gets him. Someway, somehow, he gets it. And just like that, the conversation ends there.

"Dr. McKay called."

Ryan blinks, narrowing his eyes, trying to force his sight but he can't, he can't, they have given up-- "Oh," he says after a moment.

"Yeah, hmm." Seth shrugs, that much Ryan can see, the shift of one shoulder. "Called around seven." He pauses, and Ryan thinks the good doctor can't possibly have worse news than what she delivered today. It's not fucking possible. "We have an appointment at one of the community centers of the Braille Institute. Tomorrow. Early morning. Hmm. Well, you do."

And Ryan nods, even as he can feel Seth shifting on the bed, and not for the first time he wishes he could see Seth's face, know what the other is thinking, what's happening. Seth's eyes have always said so much, too much to Ryan and--

Ryan sighs, swallowing thickly and with difficulty, his throat suddenly tight and closed and he has to close his eyes, breathe out through his mouth not to take another step toward his fucking abyss.

"Nine a.m.," Seth says, his voice low and ending in a yawn. "I can drive you."

Ryan sighs once again, thinking about Kirsten's proposal of a driver and remembering the way his hands had clenched at the thought of never driving again.

"Okay," Ryan answers after a moment, and Seth nods, a small movement, and Ryan breathes out through his mouth, low and deep, and close his eyes.

Sleep comes easy, as if the hours before had been so plagued with memories and dreams it was anything but sleep, and just as he can feel his consciousness sleeping, one of Seth's hands let go of his own. Ryan feels a second of panic, blinks his eyes rapidly and in desperation, wanting to clutch at Seth's shirt, at Seth's body, before the hand falls down on Ryan's shoulder, down his neck, to cradle the collarbone, thumb resting on his pulse point.

Ryan breathes in softly, comfortably, safe and secure, and falls asleep between one breath and the next.

*****

They don't talk on the way back to the apartment, after the meeting. There's no need. Seth did the grocery shopping while Ryan met with one of the guys in charge at the Braille Institute, figured, well, he should let Ryan have his time with the guy. But God, Seth thinks, glancing at Ryan out of the corner of his eyes as the elevator doors close from the parking lot. There was nothing more difficult than standing there and saying goodbye to Ryan, if only for two hours.

They've spent all summer together, always either him or one of his parents with Ryan, but leaving him with some stranger? Afraid something could happen, Ryan could fucking trip because he just didn't see-- Seth opens his mouth, loosening the tight pressure of his jaw and tells himself to breathe.

The elevator pings and they step outside, Seth's hands itching to reach forward, find its way to Ryan's elbow, steer Ryan right, not allow him to tumble, to fall--

"Well, hello there. Long time no see, huh?"

Seth blinks, thinking he's hallucinating, really, because that can't be Tatiana standing up from where she was sitting by the side of their door, swiping at the bottom of her jeans.

Tatiana smirks, one eyebrow raised in that way of hers that's almost like Ryan used to do, looking in between him and Ryan.

Seth glances at Ryan, standing straight, next to him, back so tensed, it's gotta hurt all the way to Ryan's temples. And fuck, because he knows Ryan never called his friends, never told them, and of course they'd make their way here, with Tatiana as their representative. It's the Friday before the start of classes, they should have known one of them was coming.

"Tatiana."

"Oh, you remember me," Tatiana says with so much sarcasm, it makes Seth feel guilty and he didn't do anything. "At the very least--"

"Cut the bullshit, will you?" Ryan says through his teeth, and Seth blinks because, fuck, that's not his friend either.

Seth can't see Ryan's eyes with the dark glasses he's wearing, and they are supposed to help with the change in light, but he knows for a fact that they don't. And Seth might not be able to see Ryan's eyes, but he can imagine him rolling them at Tatiana right about now.

Ryan shakes his head once, making his way to the door, and Seth's heart can't stop beating in his throat.

"Well, since you put it so nicely." Tatiana takes a step back as Ryan makes his way to the door. "I wanted to see you."

"I'm here, you saw me. The elevator is that way," Ryan says with a wave in the general direction of down the hallway.

Seth rushes to his side, trying to get out his keys even as he reaches Ryan, who already has his keys out. And he stands there, like an idiot, watching Ryan hesitate, miss once, twice, before cursing under his breath.

Seth swallows, hand reaching to touch Ryan's elbow. "I've got it."

Ryan nods, lips in a thin line, and takes a step to the side, to let him reach the lock, back still to Tatiana.

Seth's looking right at Ryan, so he doesn't see the confusion on Tatiana's face, but he hears her say, "Ryan, what--?"

"I'm blind, okay?" Ryan hisses through his teeth, and Seth's fingers go numb, the keys clattering to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an actual soundtrack to this fic, you know? But mostly, there's just one song that I would put on repeat sometimes. Set the fire to the third bar, by Snow Patrol. For me, that song is this fic. Just like that.


	6. vi.

Ryan breathes harshly through his mouth, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He wants to fold his arms over his chest, dig his nails into his skin, but he doesn't want to be obvious how much he's trying to protect himself. 

He can almost hear Seth sighing before reaching for the fallen keys.

"Ryan--"

Ryan can feel his throat tightening at the tone in Tatiana's voice. Tatiana, who has always been as loud and expressive as Seth, who says so much with the tone of her voice alone. He hears the lock on the door giving in, and he pushes past Seth and into the apartment.

The bright light coming in from the wide open curtains hurt his eyes and his glasses are worthless in this fight. He takes them off, throwing them to the counter top to his left. He can hardly see his way inside, but he knows his way around, knows this apartment like the back of his hand and has enough confidence in that not to fear hitting something and falling face first. If he focuses enough, he can find his way around easily, even if such focus makes his head throb like something's trying to crawl out of it.

He stands behind the couch, hands clutching the back so tight his knuckles hurt -- his whole body _hurts_. He hears Seth making his way inside, letting his keys fall on the small ceramic bowl on the corner of the counter top. Seth bought that bowl in Italy with a smile and a shrug, and he's taken to placing his keys there for easy access. Ryan doesn't need him to say it's so he can find his keys easily. Ryan knows it's for him.

"I'm just gonna go--"

Ryan snorts, hearing Seth's voice. Ryan almost seeing Seth in his mind's eyes even as his eyes blink and can see the outline of the couch, the entertainment center, his eyes still adjusting to the change of light. Seth's probably jerking his head over his right shoulder, toward the hallway. Ryan hears his footsteps down the hallway, and into his bedroom. Seth's door doesn't close, but then again, they stopped doing that a long time ago.

The silence between them is oppressive. Ryan shifts, turning to his right, until he can't see Tatiana in his shortening peripheral vision. 

"I have--" Ryan starts, right hand closing in a fist, left one clutching harder at the top of the couch. "I have a degenerative disease. It's called Retinitis Pigmentosa."

He swallows and is reminded of telling the Cohens -- _his parents_ , some part of the back of his mind whispers -- and Seth finding out, but this is easier, because he's done it before. This is easier, because he's tired of hiding from his friends and fuck it, if they have to know.

He opens his mouth to start explaining, but Tatiana's voice interrupts him.

"No, don't. I know what it is."

He turns around, his face probably showing his surprise. The disease is not that uncommon, he knows, but he had never heard those words until Dr. McKay told them to him, so, yeah, he's surprised.

He frowns, tilting his head, and he can't see the expression on Tatiana's eyes, can't read it, but he can see her shrugging her shoulders.

"Patrick's cousin, Richard, he has Usher's syndrome."

Ryan closes his eyes for a second. He came across that in his search for RP. He knows blindness comes as a double package, deafness as well, thrown in for good measure.

"Richard, he's a great guy. Patrick cares a lot for him. I met him about two years ago. I," she says with another shrug, and he can see her hand moving to her mouth, to wipe her upper lip, shaking as it does so. "I read about it, and found out about RP."

And she remembers? Ryan wonders. He swallows tightly, thankful he doesn't have to go through the words again, explain once more.

"How far along?"

Ryan chuckles, a hollow sound that ends with a huff of air coming from his opened mouth. "Far enough."

"What's your field of vision?"

And fuck, if Tatiana doesn't know more than she should, than Ryan would have pegged her for. "Under twenty."

"Fuck," Tatiana curses under her breath, and Ryan can feel something uncoiling from the pit of his stomach, burning bright for a second before evaporating like water in concrete mix under the too high sun. It feels like relief, but it's been so long, the feeling is almost alien to him.

They stand there, Ryan breathing through his nose and out of his mouth, each breath burning, Tatiana looking at him. He can't see the details in her eyes -- lovely black eyes -- only the shade as a whole, a blur of black. At times, he has wondered, what would have happened if he had met her years ago, before Patrick or Seth. He can't see her eyes, but he can almost feel them boring into him. As if she's trying to come to a diagnose by sheer knowledge of things once read.

"You weren't going to tell us."

Ryan shrugs. In the middle of the night when he is unable to distinguish the details of the shadows in his room, he tells himself it's not that. He was going to tell them. He just needed time. Time which he didn't have.

"I couldn't--" _I couldn't say the words. I've said them too many times. I needed you to know, but I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how to do that._ Ryan shrugs again. "You know now."

"I do."

He thinks about saying something else, about giving her other truths. But he can't. He sighs, leaning his hip against the edge of the couch, and thinks of Seth, hidden in his bedroom, book probably on his lap and not seeing a word. He smiles inwardly, remembers Seth's fingertips on the back of his hand, on the inside of his wrist.

There's a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the present. He turns around, and he can't see the details on the edges of her face, or the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. He can't see the light catching her hair, nothing but wide strokes of light and dark, shimmering around him, in between them, making his eyes sting and narrow slightly'. He can see her face and about six inches of wall on either side, and that's as far as his peripheral vision can be pushed.

He blinks slowly, his head hurting, thoughts slurred with tiredness and the bitter knowledge. She squeezes his shoulder, words for once failing her. Ryan sighs, closes his eyes for a second and leans into her touch.

*****

Tatiana leaves sometime before lunch, Seth walking out into the living room seconds after. Ryan's sitting on the couch, TV on and eyes closed, head tilted back. Seth doesn't say anything. He orders pizza for lunch and they have it in comfortable silence, not really watching _Resident Evil: Extinction._

They spend the afternoon revolving around each other, staying in orbit and yet not touching. Seth reads on the couch while Ryan uses the computer, his head pounding and not giving a shit. Ryan moves to his bedroom to while Seth does the laundry and makes a list for them to go grocery shopping tomorrow.'

They order Thai for dinner, and for a second Ryan can feel his throat tight at the memory of white take out boxes in the Cohen household and how much he missed them during his stay at Theresa's, the summer of 2004.

They eat in silence, as usual, comfortable silence that Ryan breaks, "Tatiana kept asking me about school."

Seth lifts his eyes from his plate, frowns for a second, before tilting his head to the side.

Ryan can't help but smile at him. _Remember that look. That's his confused look. Later on, when you can't see it anymore, you'll know what it looks like. You've seen it a thousand times, in the kitchen in Newport, in the pool house, in Seth's bedroom, at Harbor, and in the Berkeley campus and now at your own apartment._

"Oh," Seth says, blinking and something changes in his face, something Ryan can still recognize, can still see.

The way Seth's mouth gets tight, eyes narrowed a little bit. Ryan sighs slowly through his mouth. _Memorize it. It's not Seth's best expression, but it's his, it's the way he looks when he know he's helpless and pissed. He's not pissed at you, just at everything else._

Ryan nods, seeing Seth, curve of his cheekbones, the lines down to his jaw, the thinness of his lips.

"She kept asking when I was going to back school, that I had to get my degree." He sighs, letting his fork fall into the box, leaning back against the chair. God, his head hurts. It's now a constant drumming, unmoving. "She kept asking that," he says with a grimace, pinching the bridge of his nose in between his forefinger and thumb. "And right now, I'm more worried about going to the bathroom in the middle of the night."

His hand still for a second. He didn't want to say that. He didn't mean to say that. But God, this is Seth and he's tired and he just doesn't want to filter his thoughts, not anymore, not when his head feels filled with cotton and whatever has been trying to crawl out of his fucking brain is well on its way out.

"Ryan--"

But Ryan shakes his head grimacing, his lips in a thin line. He really doesn't want to talk. He could barely process Tatiana's visit. In fact, he needed almost six hours and nothing but silence to do so. He doesn't think there's enough time in his lifetime to process what he just said.

He can hear Seth sigh, then pick up his fork once again and start eating. Ryan nods to himself, and stabs at a chiang mai noodle with more force than entire necessary.

*****

Ryan can feel his skin tight, his muscles itching all the way to be bone. Something moves in with his bloodstream that's not red and white cells, anxiousness and impatience breeding even as he breathes. His hands knot in the edges of the sheet and he's torn between staying lying down or standing up and doing something. He can feel the itching become something else that makes him growl in the back of his throat because his skin doesn't fit right. He wants to do something, anything -- ache and hurt and remember how blood feels when it oozes from an opened wound, how his skin tingles and aches and burns and--

The door creaks when it's pushed open and Ryan turns around to look at the familiar outline of Seth standing there. He pauses for a second before walking into the room. Ryan lets out a soft sigh, hands clenching the sheets even tighter as his earlier desperation disappears and his throat loosens. 

The bed dips under Seth's weight. He pulls the sheets back on the left side of the bed and crawls in silently. He's nothing but a silhouette in the dim light through the closed curtains. Every shift and move from Seth's body is familiar, the memory of the two of them sharing a room with two double beds in each city in Europe they visited. But they always ended up in one because Seth knew when Ryan would need the human contact and when it wouldn't be welcomed.

He can hear Seth sighing, shifting once again before settling, right shoulder against Ryan's left one. Ryan closes his eyes for a second, breathing in through his mouth, forcing his hands open, stretching his fingers, before letting them lie on his sides. He tells himself to relax even as his head continues to pound, his pulse loud on his temples. He wants to scream and bite back his words, he wants to yell and say nothing at all. And it's too much, too fucking _much--_

Seth touches Ryan's hand, the back of a palm brushing his own. Ryan's throat tightens, gentle fingers touching the outside of his wrist, making their way inside. An invitation. And slowly, seconds tick by, Ryan's eyelids flutter, Seth rotates his wrist and captures Ryan's fingers. Seth's hand is warm and moist. Comforting. The pressure of his fingers seem to shatter the delicate balance of glass on ice and everything breaks, breaks--

He can hear Dr. McKay telling him the status of his field of vision --

_legally blind, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to go this quickly--_

and Nicholas Langley, smiling at him, nodding and telling him not to worry, he can learn Braille, there are things he'll need to learn --

_the use of a cane is important, Ryan. Now, while you still have some range of vision left--_

things that will help --

_have you considered a guide dog? We can put you in contact with--_

almost as if he were back in school --

_there's an Orientation and Mobility Training seminar starting a week from now. It lasts five months and you will have to--_

and he can still hear Tatiana and

_what about graduation? What about your career? Ryan, you have to consider--_

nothing that she says matters, because he can't fucking make his way out on the street on his own, how is he supposed to go to class, to care about classes, how is he supposed to--

He opens his mouth even as his throat closes and his face crumbles into a grimace. He shakes his head -- too many words, too many, too _many_ \-- and he squeezes Seth's hand, crushes it in his grip. This is the one thing grounding him, setting him right, giving him direction because fuck, he's lost, he's been lost for seven months and he's only now realizing it, because he's been going in circles all this while and time is up and _fuck!_

"Hey, hey, it's okay, Ryan. It's okay."

But it's not, Seth knows this. It's not okay. It hasn't been since he was _born_. Ryan chuckles, the sound hysterical in his throat. He shakes his head, his mouth wide open, wanting to _scream_ but the words aren't there. There's nothing to say, nothing to fix it and he doesn't do this, this is not him, he doesn't crumble, he doesn't break, but he is--

Seth's hand on Ryan's shoulder pulls him forward. His body stays tight, a bundle of muscles under too thin skin, even as he rolls the side, face on Seth's shoulder. Seth's right hand still holds his in a tight grip, left one on Ryan's back, moving up to his neck, holding him close. Ryan shakes his head again, wants to fight Seth. He wants to resist but he's weak, his body wants the contact, the comfort. He wants Seth's touch on his skin and he can't resist.

He hides his face in the hollow Seth's neck, his mouth wide open in a silent scream that starts somewhere in his belly and ends in his throat, not finding its way out. His head throbs and his eyes sting and ache but stay dry, dead, _useless._

"It's okay, Ryan. Shh. It's okay. I've got you."

He sinks deeper in Seth's skin, under Seth's touch, hand on the back of Ryan's neck, fingers around his own. He wants to crawl deeper until he's wrapped up in Seth. But he can't, his body is too tight, too confining. He pulls his left hand, still clasped in Seth's, up until it's between the two of them, hands curled around one another, fist against his own chest. Ryan breathes in, and Seth smells like soap and ocean and home and he can sigh and close his eyes.

"I'm here, I've got you," Seth whispers. And, when his breathing has relaxed and his grip is not white knuckle tight, in between one breath and the next, Ryan falls asleep.

*****

The following week, summer ending as the leaves start turning orange from brilliant green, Ryan sits on the small kitchen table with a mug of coffee in between both hands. Seth gives him a small smile before he squeezes one shoulder, before leaving the apartment for his eight am class. He sits there, staring at his coffee, swallowing past the tightness in his throat and trying his best to loosen his hold on the mug. He pretends it doesn't matter to him that he should have a Structural Analysis II class at eight am as well, before Mechanics of Soils at ten.

An hour later, he throws the remaining coffee down the drain, picks up his wallet and keys, and makes his way out of the apartment with the cane he was fitted to on his second class at the Braille Institute. To train and learn -- both with the cane and for independent mobility -- while he still has some sight. He can feel his jaw tighten as he closes the door after him, making his way slowly but surely down to the first floor, where a cab is waiting for him.

They find a routine that works for them, the same way they did the previous two years in college despite the fact that they weren't sharing courses.

Ryan goes to his classes at the center. He follows his teacher and learns Braille while his head throbs in the background and the corners of his narrowed eyes are pinched in pain. He learns how to move around the room, how to be confident enough that he won't hit the wall if he's not careful. He learns that when they dim the lights in the wide room they are in for Mobility Training, he can't see shit and he has no idea how the fuck he's supposed to go from where he is to the table set in the middle of the room, let alone pick up a fork, cut a potato and eat. 

Tatiana calls, asks to meet him for coffee, which Ryan refuses resolutely. He's not going to meet her, not outside, and not in his apartment. He doesn't want to see her, doesn't want to hear her ask about his future. He doesn't think he could handle thinking about his future at this moment in time, when taking one day at a time is painful in and of itself. Seth doesn't ask about that, and Ryan's grateful for that.

They keep having lunch together, every single day, even if Seth is late for a few of his classes. They meet after Ryan's classes at the Braille Institute, in a small café almost fifteen minutes from campus. 

Seth doesn't do much in that first week except go to class, read the books he has, order dinner and watch TV with him. He doesn't talk about his classes like he used to, back when Ryan shared a mutual disdain about teachers who think their subjects are the only ones the students are taking in the semester. Seth doesn't talk about the papers he has to write, or the books he's reading. Ryan thinks it's because Seth thinks Ryan can't handle it. Ryan hates him a little for it, because if Seth would talk about his classes then Ryan could be pissed off for an hour before shaking his head and asking Seth to keep on talking. Ryan would have the excuse of something, damn it.

But instead, Seth is all patience and understanding. He picks Ryan up from the center, cuts class so they can have lunch. Seth tries to ease the change in light in the apartment when they arrive, crawls into Ryan's bed when Ryan needs it the most, not saying anything when Ryan can't take a single word spoken, and talking about nothing when Ryan needs to hear his voice.

And yet, there are times, when he can't... he can't--

Ryan blinks, looking down at the head full of curls resting on his collarbone and he takes in a deep breath that ends in a painful sound. He swallows, and slowly pries Seth's hand from his and slides out from under Seth's body until he's sitting up on the bed and Seth's hugging the pillow close to his face.

His head aches somewhere in between his eyes and temples, but he pays no attention to it. He rubs a hand over his eyes and walks out of the bedroom. His hand touches the wall that joins the bedroom and the hall and he makes his way down the hall in bare feet, as his eyes complain and his brain pounds inside his head.

The living room comes into view, nothing but shades of grays and blacks but Ryan can fill in the blanks, knows this place enough to fill in the blanks. He moves around the pieces of furniture with confidence he doesn't feel as his heart beats loudly in his chest. His finger touches the back of the couch, the corner of the TV set and pauses by the window.

He can imagine the trees and grass and people out there from the afternoons of glancing out the window in between papers and books to read and classes to study for. He didn't pay enough attention back then, and now he's paying the price.

He sighs, swallows and opens his eyes. He folds his arms on his chest and glances out until all he can see is black dots that should form silhouettes that don't make sense in his scrambled brain.

Ryan doesn't know how long he stands there, but he hears Seth as he walks out of the bedroom and down the hallway. He can feel his teeth grinding as his jaw tightens and _fuck, leave, Seth, just fucking leave because right now I'm not in the fucking mood to--_

Seth stands for a second watching him, watching his back. Ryan closes his eyes shut and tells himself this is Seth and he _likes_ Seth, he even cares for Seth more than he should but fuck if even the words in his mind don't push back whatever it is that's crawling up his throat.

Seth moves, hesitant at first and Ryan can't stop thinking, _go, go, Seth, fuck, just fucking leave._ But Seth was never the one for subtle and getting it, so it's not a surprise when he doesn't get it now either.

Seth touches Ryan's elbow but Ryan jerks back, takes a step to the side and looks at Seth with eyes filled with red. Ryan's panting harshly through his mouth and he can't see the expression on Seth's eyes but they are wide in surprise. And Ryan feels like he's slapped Seth and somewhere in the back of his mind he hears, _Good, yes, good._

"Ryan?"

Seth's voice is broken and fearful and Ryan takes it all in. He stands there, five feet from Seth, hearing the ocean mixed with anger roaring in his ears. He tells himself to calm down, he's not the one to do this, to lose himself in anger but he can't stop it. He's fucking losing it in the middle of the night and he doesn't even know to tell Seth this.

He shakes his head once and makes his way around Seth, away from him, like Seth's contagious. He walks down the hallway and into his bedroom, anger still simmering under his skin and his breathing harsh through his mouth.

Ryan crawls into bed, on his right side, curling as if cold even though he's feeling hot, and closes his eyes. He doesn't hear Seth moving, and Ryan imagines Seth leaving the living room or going to the kitchen, making his way to his own room. He doesn't hear anything and he bites the inside of his cheek because this second, he doesn't give a flying fuck.

He sighs, his muscles unable to stay wound so tight for long, and after a couple of minutes sleep settles over him like a second blanket.

The next morning, Ryan wakes up to find Seth lying in bed, curled on his own side, back against Ryan's own. Ryan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose and feels like an ass all over again. He didn't hear Seth come to bed last night. He never even heard him move.

*****

By mid September, almost a month since the start of classes, on a Tuesday, Ryan places his fork next to the white take out box and swallows thickly. "We should go to Newport this weekend."

He can imagine Seth being surprised, because Kirsten and Sandy took to coming over twice a month last semester after they found out. They've already come to visit once since the start of class. But Ryan doesn't think he can handle staying in the apartment this weekend, Kirsten and Sandy arriving. Not this weekend, not when--

He shrugs after a moment meeting Seth's eyes. He can see the tightness around the corners of Seth's eyes, read the concern in that face. _Remember it, Ryan, God, remember it._ And he does every shift of Seth's face, the curve of his eyebrow, the length of his eyelashes, the soft sigh that leaves Seth's lips as his eyes flutter closed. Ryan never thought he would need the memories of lying on the futon watching Seth sleep, propped up on one elbow, memorizing planes of skin that were never his. He didn't know he'd need those memories to be flawless in its remembrance.

"Ryan--"

"I can't--"

 _I can't stay here this weekend. I can't, Seth. Don't make me._ Ryan sighs, the words dying in his throat, but then Seth says, "Okay."

Ryan looks up at Seth, looking back at him, and he can see his head bob up and down, can picture the smile on Seth's lips as he does so. Ryan doesn't need to say a word, Seth understands.

*****

The flight home this time around is even more difficult than at the end of summer, back from Europe, leaving from Heathrow to the layover at LAX and finally, after God knows how so many hours sitting, arriving at SOF. Ryan's head has been throbbing since Thursday afternoon. He has a fleeting memory of spending Sophie's second birthday in Berlin, just the five of them, with a birthday cake and candles and Ryan looking at her in that dim light and wondering if he'd get to see her on her third birthday.

They leave on Friday morning, even though Seth has a class before lunch, but he doesn't tell the parents this, and Ryan lets him lie. They arrive at Newport on Friday, about the same time Seth should be walking into his class.

Kirsten and Sandy hover a bit, like Ryan expected them to. They ask him about the Braille classes and if he has considered having a driver on retainer because taking a cab is not safe. He appreciates their concern, even as he clenches his hands and nods, his lips tight. As much as he wants to rebel against their concern, he still wants Kirsten to leave her door ajar so she can hear him, should he need her. Sophie, as usual hugs Ryan's knees when he arrives and makes him smile and miss her a little bit, even if she is standing right before him, arms around his calves, head thrown back so she can see him.

They have take out for dinner that for Ryan means home in a way that makes his throat close up and his hands shake as he passes the chicken with spicy curry to Sandy. And even though Ryan can't see the way Seth glances at him with every other bite because it's just outside of his field of vision, Ryan can imagine him clearly as he can see him skating down the pier, laughter on his lips.

Kirsten offers the room next to Seth's, but Ryan doesn't want to give up the pool house, not yet, until he can't risk being that close to the pool so often. He wants to hold onto that bit of what used to be his every day life for four years. Seth walks him to the pool house, and even though Ryan presses his lips into a thin line, he doesn't pull away from Seth's touch until he's in the pool house and he can count his paces to the futon and then to the bathroom.

Seth leaves after that. Ryan can hear the door closing after Seth and he sighs, in a mixture of relief at the familiarity of the sound and something he doesn't dare name. He changes into sweats and a t-shirt, and thinks about crawling into bed. But it's barely ten and he remembers a time when this would be the beginning of Grand Theft Auto championships or hearing the opening chords of the Fellowship of the Ring. That was too long ago and is nothing but a sweet memory. He will remember it when he's able to deal with the knowledge that it will never happen again. 

Instead, he counts his paces, his cane already on his nightstand, and reaches the door. He can still see the shapes of everything that surrounds him. It reminds him of the first time he noticed he needed glasses. The shock of seeing everything with newfound eyes when he put on his glasses, realizing the greens where sharper, the blues with shades he didn't know, that everything had delicate edges and lines in between. It's almost like that, now, only not quite.

He stands under the threshold of the room that was his for four years before he moved into a dream he didn't use to have until he met Sandy. The house is at his left with the folding chairs and the barbecue, the kitchen and everything he's ever loved inside. The pool's slightly to his right. The crescent moon, shining brightly, is reflected in the water. Everything around him is shades of midnight blue and black and gray and silver. He breathes in and his chest constricts, his hand still on the doorknob holding on tight to the one thing that grounds him.

He used to go out to the pool the nights he couldn't sleep. During those first days, then later, when he had too many thoughts running on his mind. 

He spent four years here. He found a family here. He found everything here.

Ryan sighs, takes a step forward and down the three steps and his bare feet touch the grass. He closes his eyes for a second, before opening them. He squats, digging his fingers into the soil. Kirsten used to hire a gardener, but when the guy went away a week after Ryan arrived at this house, he took to mowing the lawn, and setting the sprinklers. Kirsten never got used to doing that herself, had to hire a new gardener the summer of 2004. She fired him on September that same year. He plucks a few blades of grass and brings them closer to his face, smells the water, the ocean breeze and his family in it. He grimaces, rubbing his fingers together until the grass cracks under pressure. He sees the shreds in his fingers and saves the memory for when he won't be able to see the green and the liquid on his fingertips. 

He stands and moves to the pool. It reflects the moon and his toes are cold on top of the tiles around the edge. He takes another step forward, until his toes can curl on the leeway of the turn of the tiles. He used to swim here, from one end to the other, until his muscles were tired and sore from the exertion and wonders if he can do it again. He can learn to measure the space better, he can count the strokes it takes him to reach the end. He can learn, because he wants to be able to swim until his arms are quivering with tiredness and his legs ache in an amazingly good way.

He looks out into the ocean, where it meets the sky. It's nothing but black and blue with the stars twinkling above him. He sees them as spheres that have cracked, with shards on their edges, making its way to the center. He can see the trail down the shore on his left, where he made his way down to the beach with Seth in his first day here. He was afraid of the simple catamaran, feared he would drown and that no one would be close enough to hear him scream. He smiles now, because he didn't know back then how religious Seth was about his sailing, how much he knew and how much he could teach Ryan, if there ever came the time.

The memory of the map and Tahiti is bitter. He remembers seeing the map falling next to him on the sheets of the futon while Seth stood next to the side of the bed. "I'm thinking about going to Berkeley," Seth had said, and it had made sense, it had fit, it had been enough.

He closes his eyes for a second, for a breath, almost feeling the thin paper of the map in between his fingers. The map is safe in a folder in his room, in Berkeley, where it will lay hidden until he can open it again, until it makes sense again, until it fits, until it's enough. And Ryan dreams of putting it in between panes of glass, hang it on a wall, where he can see it, where he can know it is there. Know it held his future in state lines, the distance from here to where he'd be, touch the creases of distant dark places.

He turns to look at the house, a grimace on his face as he takes two steps forward, away from the edge of the pool. He can't see the edges of the second floor, the details on the windows. For him, the roof melts into the sky in shades of midnight blue. The light on Kirsten's bedroom is still on, a circumference, yellowish light diffused as its radius increases. It makes his eyes sting, make him cringe, but he looks at it. He used to do this at night, when he couldn't sleep, when he felt scared somewhere in the back of his mind. Seeing the light on would allow him to breathe easier, let him know she was there, close, near, and would keep him safe, in a way that Dawn never made him feel.

He blinks until he can feel pressure over his eyes and behind, in between them and on his forehead. He sighs and closes his eyes. The ever changing light coming from the pool makes his eyes sting, and he pinches the bridge of nose tight and sees dancing lights behind his eyelids.

"Hey."

He can feel the pain diluting and evaporating, the lights still dancing in his eyes when a hand he knows lands on his shoulder and the other on his elbow.

And with his eyes closed, Ryan can see Seth. Seth smiling back at him, grinning, head thrown to the side as they ride down the pier and and and--

and Seth's saying something, but Ryan can't quite hear it, can't hear, can see Seth's with his mouth wide open, lips moving. But his words are mostly noises, noise, noise and Ryan thinks he can remember Seth's words and he closes his eyes shut, so tight his temples start to pound and something squeezes his elbow, his shoulder, but he's takes a step back and--

No, no, he can't remember. The memories are nothing but ghosts without voices, with the remnant of words, like pigments of smoke etched onto the wall that can't quite be scrubbed away. The memories are nothing, not even ghosts. They are dying, dying, they are being scrubbed away, taken way, they are being forgotten and Ryan can't remember Seth or Sandy or Kirsten, can't remember the color of their hair or the shade of their eyes, can't remember the way they look in the morning or at night, during breakfast and during dinner. He can't remember and he takes a step back, smooth surface under his feet when it should be grass and--

And then he's being pulled forward in a rough grip, stumbling through a step. Fingers dig into his forearms and collarbone before Seth pulls him into a tight hug, arms wound tight around him, to his back, and his face is pressed against warm skin and held tight.

Ryan blinks, out of sleep and stupor, and shade and dark, he pulls away slightly, enough to look up into Seth's eyes. Seth's face is barely inches from his own and Ryan can feel Seth clutch at his t-shirt, nails almost digging into his skin even through the fabric.

He blinks and his throat is tight and he knows something happened, he just doesn't know what that was.

"I--" He swallows past the roughness of his voice. "What--?"

"It doesn't matter," Seth says, but this close and even under this light, Ryan can tell he's lying. Seth's whole face looks pinched, in a grimace, lips pressed tight and he knows Seth got that from him. Seth's eyes are red-rimmed and narrowed. He seems to be holding his fear back by force of will.

Ryan knows something happened and whatever it is, Seth's hoping not talking about it would make it go away.

Seth, Ryan wants to say, wants to whisper, out of his lips and into Seth's breath, but he blinks and looks over his shoulder and it's only then that he notices that his feet are bare and slightly humid and he's standing over the tiles at the edge of the pool. The pool, Ryan notices, that is nothing but an expanse of blue over his shoulder. The pool that's one step away from him. The step that he took forward as Seth pulled him.

Ryan swallows and puts two and two together. He was taking a step backward. Another one and he would have fallen in backward into the pool. He hadn't noticed. He had thinking about, about the past--

shadows and ghosts and voices and no memories and no sound and no memories--

Ryan swallows again, his arms pinned in between his and Seth's chest. He lets it out, looks up at Seth again and knows there's nothing there to say.

He hadn't been paying attention. He was too caught up in whatever it was he was doing -- having a small break down is not something he wants to think about -- to realize that he was at the edge of the pool. He would have fallen in. In four years living here, he never once fell. The change in light, so harsh and quickly, the tricks of the water and the light would have been too much for him, for his eyes. He could have-- 

"You okay?"

Ryan looks up at Seth, the corners of his eyes still tight. This is how Seth looks worried out of his mind, heart beating against the back of his throat. This is how Seth looks scared shitless. Remember this. It won't be the last time.

Ryan nods, and Seth pulls them another step away from the pool before letting him go slightly. Seth's hands stay on his forearms. The muscles feel sore and he remembers Seth digging his fingers into his arms. He'll have crescent fingernail indentations like the moon out tonight, on his forearms in the morning; he glances at the sky for a second before looking back down.

They don't say anything, and Ryan knows they communicate best without words, with soft touches and confident movements, and Seth's hand on the small of his back guides him to the pool house. Ryan breathes easier inside.

*****

Ryan spends most of his time that weekend, with Sandy and Kirsten and Sophie. He sits on her bed, legs stretched before him, watching TV with Kristen. He used to do that back in his second year here, after he had returned from Chino and Kirsten still felt she needed to keep him close, in case he was going to disappear into thin air.

He doesn't know what they are watching, it's not important. But when someone talks to someone else in the screen, Ryan ducks his head, turns slightly to his left and watches her. He can't watch her from the corner of his eyes, like he used to, but he can see her until the perfect light of mid-morning falls. He can see the light coming from behind her, her blond hair shining brightly around her face, falling onto her shoulders, down her collarbone. This is his mother he's watching. This is his mother and he has to remember this. The way the sun hits her hair, the side of her face, her high cheekbones. The smell of lilies and softness that lingers on her, the delicacy of her makeup, the pearl white color of her skin.

He tells himself he has to remember how Kirsten looks, God, he has to remember. He's running out of time even as his eyes sting and prickle and fail for a second and all he can see are blurred edges and colors. He blinks and breathes in, turns around, watches the screen but sees nothing. He wants to see her, again, closer. He wants to see her. He wants to remember her. He wants, needs to, know how she looks for when he can't look at her anymore.

So he watches her make lunch. Stands against the counter, hip against the edge and watches her move around the kitchen with more confidence than before. She only makes sandwiches because those months she actually liked cooking are far behind her. She likes ordering better, she tells him with a smile. He notices the way her mouth curls up, the way her eyes seem to change shade and he wishes his eyes were better to see the details he wants to save to memory. The swiftness of the colors as they change he wants to remember them all.

He blinks and he can see the ghosts with just voices in his mind, the ones that scared the shit out of him on last night. But he blinks again and it's just Kirsten, her back to him. He tells her something and she laughs, looking at him over her shoulder. He sees her, clear and perfect, golden hair and sky blue eyes and long eyelashes that Seth inherit and femininity oozing from her very skin. And love and perfection and it's the sky and the ocean and home and the knowledge that he's never going to see this again hits him like a knife to his chest and he can't breath, he can't breathe--

He reaches to his side, hand gripping the edge of the counter, fingers digging into wood that doesn't give. When he looks up, she still has her back to him. He can see her shoulders and her arms moving. He can hear her voice and he tells himself it's enough, her voice will be enough.

*****

Ryan sits on the carpeted floor of the den, side against the couch, head tilted. He watches Sophie, smile her on face, picking up blocks and making shapes with Legos that Ryan doesn't recognize. The way she tilts her head, the tip of a tongue in between rosy lips is so Seth, Ryan can't help but smile. And then Sophie stands up and gives him something, that's not quite a building nor a pyramid, but it's hers and he smiles and nods and kisses her nose.

"Dayan!" She says before throwing her arms around his neck, which she reaches because he's sitting on the floor.

Ryan chuckles but places his arms around her, brings her to his lap.

"Tell stoory!"

He pokes her nose with his index finger and she giggles, and this is his sister, right here. His baby sister who knows he's her big brother, that will always protect her and be there for her. He never had to do that. One more thing he never had to do before the Cohens.

He hugs her tight for a second before settling her again on his legs. He sighs, leaning back against the edge of the couch. She's looking at him with blue eyes that are almost exactly like his own. "Okay, I can do that. I can tell you a story," he says, nodding at his little sister.

But he doesn't know stories for two year old little girls. Hmm. 

"Tell!"

Ryan laughs, nuzzling her cheek which makes her giggle. He can see Seth and her parents in her. She is everything he holds dear, in one small body. He kisses her ear, wetly, and she giggles again.

"Tell!" Sophie says in between laughter, and Ryan sighs and nods.

"Okay, okay." He sets her on his left knee, her legs over his right as well. Her chest is curled over his, his arms keeping her in place, warm and tucked in. "Okay, let's see if I remember the story correctly. There was this boy. And he a great boy, amazing, but he was very alone--"

"Name!"

Ryan sighs. "Let's name him... Sethela. Okay? Good enough?" Sophie nods, her forehead against his collarbone, and sighs into his neck. "He was very alone. Until... until there came this other boy and his name was... Scottish." Ryan rolls his eyes. Whatever. "And Scottish had a thing with... well, with something, and him and Sethela became best friends on sight--"

*****

They go down to the shore early on Sunday morning when Ryan is still sleepy. Sandy drives with Ryan and Seth on the back seat. Sandy tells them over his shoulder about new cases at the DAs office, about the work he loves and never should have left. Seth laughs and Ryan smiles and catches Sandy's eyes on the rearview mirror.

Sandy makes his way into the ocean, surfboard under one arm, smile on his lips. Ryan tilts his head and smiles and remembers watching Sandy doing this only a handful of times, but more than enough to know that this is his other passion. The knowledge is sweet on his tongue. 

Minutes later, they sit on the sand with Seth and Ryan can't help but think about maps and straight lines and small catamarans and promises made and now broken. Sandy walks back, surfboard again under his arm. He's grinning widely so much so that Ryan has to grin back. He memorizes the way Sandy's hair is half plastered to his scalp and to his forehead, the way he shakes his head and sprays Seth and Ryan with salty water and laughter. Seth says something that makes Sandy laugh, and Sandy slaps Seth's shoulder and Ryan takes all this in, every moment so that he can remember the colors and the clear sky and the sun and the ocean in the background. So he knows his memories are picture perfect.

And he doesn't have a answer for the questions inside him but he has this, himself finding a way the best way he knows how, with touch and the little light he has left and the quotes from Sandy's lips and the smiles and the thickness of Sandy's eyebrows and wondering if Seth will inherit them as the years go by. And he memorizes the way Sandy tilts his head, reaches forward, touches Seth and smiles. And Seth has Sandy's cheekbones and smile and, but he has his mother's eyes, the shape and the clearness in them.

Sandy smiles and turns around and says, "son?" Something catches in Ryan's throat and he nods, swallows thickly, and follows them back up the trail of sand and to the Rover.

*****

Later that morning, Ryan and Seth find their way to Seth's bedroom. Maybe Seth knows what Ryan's doing, maybe he knows --

ghosts with just voices

\-- that he's reaching for the colors that make the memories, the touches, the smiles, the change in light and dark.

Seth sits on the bed while Ryan goes to the window. He can see the pool house from here, not the details but he can see the structure and the corners. He imagines Seth standing in this same spot, glancing down at the pool house and thinking about going down and crawling into his bed. Ryan can't help but smile.

When he turns around, Seth's on the bed, back against the pillows, some book on his hands, and Ryan knows he's just skimming through it. A book he had to read at Harbor, probably, but the memory is more than Ryan can take, and his lungs empty and his breath catches.

Seth, sitting just like that, a thousand times before. He'll look up and see Ryan. Seth'll smile and everything will fit, and everything used to fit and be right and they were friends, they were close, and-- And Ryan always needed Seth, always, but now it's worse, this is fucking codependence now, and he can't do this, he can't do this alone, he can't do this and not know--

Seth looks up and blinks at Ryan and smiles and Ryan can't help but think that this is what falling in love must feel like, all over again, stealing tender moments tangled in a gaze. Ryan swallows and smiles back, like he always does when Seth smiles at him.

"Come on." Ryan clears his throat and tries again. "Let's go downstairs. One last game."

Ryan swallows, his chest tight, and everything seems to stand still, because this is Seth before him. One last game. For old times sake.

They sit on carpeted floor, their backs against the lower part of the couch. Sophie's upstairs for her nap, and the house is finally quiet, and Ryan blinks slowly, Seth's on Ryan's left. His legs are folded while Ryan's are pulled to his chest, elbows resting on the knees. Ryan turns around and stares at Seth, his face so close Ryan can actually see the brown in his eyes for a second, and he thinks he sees the brief flash of something, quickly killed before it fully becomes.

Seth gives him a small smile, a shaky smile, before handing Ryan a controller and reaching for the console. Ryan blinks as his eyes start to ache, the pain making its way from the back of his eyes up to his eyebrows and in between them. He pushed himself too far. He went to the shore earlier this morning, watched TV with Kirsten yesterday before the four of them went out to dinner. 

But time is running fast through his fingers and he has to do this, he can't just turn around. He's not the same person. He won't ever be. He's not like all those people moving past everything and not seeing, while all he wants to do is be given another day, another hour, another minute.

Seth settles back and turns around to look at Ryan and Ryan smiles back, soft and tender, nothing but a curl of his lips even as he catches a moment, a second, in his eyes. And it's not the words they don't say but the ones they do, with their eyes, nothing but a message that Seth can see, can realize, and he nods. And Ryan sits here, eyes glued to Seth's face and profile. To eyes and eyebrows, nose. To cheekbones and ears and lips. To jaw and chin and neck and collarbone.

Ryan chuckles, enraptured by all the things he realizes, making him nervous and making him feel alive at the same time. And it makes sense, it's enough. He thinks of maps and ghosts with just voices and smiles. Now his ghosts have faces and colors and light and ocean and sky and touch and shades and depth.

"Hey."

Ryan turns, smiling at Seth's voice. His voice that won't ever be just a ghost. When they are all gone, light and ocean and sky, the feeling of their shape and skin will remain. He'll make them keep, he'll make them enough.

He closes his eyes and sees Sophie's colors, Kirsten's light, Sandy's ocean and Seth's sky. Everything, knit and perfectly and together, a dance of shades and color in his closed eyelids. 

"Hey," Ryan whispers, nods. The background is how he remembers, the house is how he remembers, his memories are just like he remembers. Time is running out fast, and he stops fighting and lets it go, lets it remain, lets it be enough.


	7. vii.

By the end of October, whatever peace had Ryan found the weekend they went up to Newport is long gone. He can feel his skin tingling with pent-up energy, and it's just like that time, when he was lying on the bed and Seth'd crawled in when he most needed it. One more minute, Ryan knows as he thinks about that night, and he might have done something to stop the feeling of his skin being too small for his muscles and bones and blood, like it doesn't fit right, like he's feeling at the moment.

Ryan woke up like this; his skin crawling, after having gone to bed for an hour in the afternoon. His head pounding in between his eyes and figuring a little bit of sleep might help. It didn't. Instead, everything itches and tightens around him, everything is either too little or too much and he's seemed to have lost the in between so very long ago, he doesn't even remember what it felt like to have it.

His wrists and ankles seem to ache for no apparent reason except too much energy and too little to do. He has classes at the Braille Institute in the morning, and he becomes best friends with Google after lunch, but there's only so much one can do before wanting to throw the laptop out the window.

He glances at the clock. It's a little after five and Seth should be arriving in about half an hour, after a class. They'll make small talk, not the comfortable conversations they used to have months ago, years ago. And it's not Seth's fault, Ryan knows. Seth, if anything, has been accommodating and understanding, so much so that at times it unnerves Ryan and he wishes, for once, that Seth would be an idiot so Ryan would have a reason to yell at him.

The back of his neck hurts. The sides of his face, the muscle of his eyes, underneath his eyebrows, in between them, behind his forehead, somewhere in between the muscle and bone. It hurts, it aches, it pounds, someway, as if there is something there that wasn't before and now it can't find room. It makes Ryan's skin crawl and feel too tight, too fucking tight, and his eyes are so fucking worthless he might as well just pluck them out with a fork.

His hands close into fists but it's not enough. There's so much he wants to do. He used to leave the house and go to Bill's store, about seven blocks from his small house back in Chino, because Bill didn't care if you were thirteen or thirty, as long as you had the money, he'd give you what you paid for. He could buy a six pack and go down to the field, nothing but concrete and cement, and some guys would be playing football and he'd just sit on the bleacher (again, nothing but concrete and cement) and open a cold one and drink it. Just sit there and drink it and tell himself not to think about anything, anything at all. Not the way the skin around his mother's eye was black or the way the guy now living in his house gave him the back of his hand because he asked about lunch. Ryan didn't think, because that was the only way to keep on going, to keep on breathing, to tell himself everything was fine, just fucking fine.

But he can't do that now. It doesn't matter that he can drink all he wants, he's not thirteen anymore. He can chug fucking Jack Daniels if that's his poison for tonight, but it doesn't fucking matter because they don't have alcohol at home and going out is a fucking hazard for him. He could call a cab or try to walk the four blocks to the nearest store but fuck, going out on his own is terrifying in its own way. He's gone out, yeah, he's done so but with Nicholas Langley by his side, with the man's help. But Ryan's never even crossed the street by himself, goddammit, and he'll have to do soon if he doesn't want to stay holed up in his house when the lights go black.

Ryan closes his eyes, his nails digging so hard and deep, he can almost feel the skin breaking. But it's not enough because there isn't enough beer in the whole fucking country to keep him from thinking about this. 

His face aches and itches and he walks to the bathroom barefoot, opening the tap and cupping his hands. The water pours down, fills his hands and spills around the sides. He bites his lower lip, tells himself to breathe even if he can't see the edges of his fingernails, the end of the door just over his shoulder, the shower on his left. Even if he can't see anything further than eight inches directly before him. Nothing but eight inches of blurred nothingness and his breathing is so tight, so difficult, he wonders if he might not have cracked a rib and punctured a lung.

He'd thought he had said his goodbyes, paid his respects to his eyes, to his eyesight, that weekend, almost two months ago, back in Newport. He had done what he wanted to do, gave in and remembered, and saw everything once again and hoped it be enough. He had thought it would be, but fuck, it'll never be enough. One can't have enough of skin and touch and smiles and colors and light and ocean and sky. You can't. Ryan can't.

It's not enough, not when he thinks about his cane lying on his bed or his black glasses not really helping with the change of light and dark. It's too late, too late now. Nothing helps. He's running out of time. He's running out of--

And he remembers the punching bag in the pool house that Sandy had let him put up. He remembers planning to pack it and move it to Berkeley but Seth had refused, out right refused. Seth had said that he wasn't going to contribute to Ryan wanting to punch some guy's lights out and actually practicing for it. Ryan hadn't fought him for it, only shrugged and let it stay back.

He splashes the water on his face, and blinks, and his head hurts like it does all the time now. It'll pass, Nicholas said, his body will get used to the decrease in information input from his eyes and stop trying to compensate, and it'll stop. Ryan doesn't know if he wants it to, because when it does, it won't be because his body got used to -- it'll be because his body gave up.

He remembers picking up a rag and wrapping it around his hand, around his knuckles and placing one single swift punch to the sandbag. Remembers feeling his muscles stretch and itch and ache and be sore from the exertion and liking that kind of pain, relaxing him from the inside out. And God, how he misses that. How he misses the light coming from the glass walls and the sound of the ocean on the really quiet nights and the feel of the bag against his rag wrapped knuckles. How he misses--

And then there's pain and burning and his muscles feel sore and he hisses before blinking and gazing down at his palms, the back of his hands, his knuckles. It's nothing but a blurred shape that doesn't quite resemble a hand. There's something dark dripping into the sink and it takes him a minute to recognize the blood for what it is.

His mouth opens slightly, his left hand shaking as it reaches out to touch his right knuckles and they sting, biting on the inside of his cheek as he hisses. He blinks again, looking up and seeing the cracked mirror before him, even if he can't distinguish the fractures coming from the round center that's smeared with blood. Blood continues to fall from his hand and onto the sink, the bright clash of dark and white, his eyes blinking, his head pounding, his eyes stinging even though there is no change in light.

He takes a step back, then another, shaking his right hand once and hissing at the pain lacing from the tip of his fingers all the way over his shoulder and ending on his shoulder blade. He doesn't know if the bone is broken -- fuck, it can't be broken, it can't be broken -- because he never before _hit a fucking mirror_ , but even if it isn't, it might need stitches which means a hospital which means--

His right hand closes down instinctively and he hisses at the pain, aching like a son of a bitch. He takes another step back, and another, feeling the closed lid of the toilet against the back of his calves and he sits down heavily, his heart racing in his throat. He blinks, narrowing his eyes as much as he can, trying to see something clear if only for a second, trying to catch the light reflecting on the shards of glass that have to be on the floor. All he manages to do is to make his headache worse, and it feels like something wants to crawl out of his brain through his nose.

The sink is not even five feet from the doorway and he shook his hand once, and if there were shards of glass on left on his skin, then some might have fallen to the floor and he can't see worth shit, and definitely not shards so small he would have had trouble seeing them, back when his eyesight was 20/20. He can imagine himself making his way to the door as careful as possible only to feel glass digging into his soles. He brings his right hand to his chest, cradling it with his left one and the hem of his white t-shirt. It doesn't ache as much as it just feels numb, matching the rest of his body, his neck and face, even as his eyes and forehead keep on thumping inside his head.

He swallows past the bitterness in his throat, the anger on the mouth of his stomach. He wouldn't have this problem... he wouldn't have this problem if--

He closes his eyes, tilting his head back, leaning against the edge of the water tank and tells himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. He can feel the sun on his face, his feet on the grass underneath him. He can see the house behind him, nothing but ocean meeting the sky before him. He can feel the bright Newport sun on his skin even as it sets around him in Berkeley, the campus not ten minutes from the apartment, Seth not twenty from home, and waits as patiently as he can, pushing back the shadows as far as they dare to go, whispering to himself _It won't happen overnight_ and not longer believing it.

*****

Seth pushes the door open, shrugging off his bag and letting his keys fall down on the small ceramic bowl. He looks around the house, darkness falling onto the corners and the sides, sun already set at ten to six. He places his bag on the chair, glancing down the hallway. He knows Ryan lies down when his headaches gets to be too much.

He makes his way to the hallway, to the first door on his left, to Ryan's room. He stands by the doorway, peeks inside and sighs. Weird, he thinks, because if Ryan was going to leave the house, he would have told Seth. Right? Ryan has to know Seth would have an apoplexy if he were to arrive home and not find Ryan there. Probably call the police and the National Guard next and if Ryan was only at the store, he'd have the embarrassment of a lifetime and Seth knows Ryan would hate him for that.

He makes his way back to the living room, heart beating loudly in its new accommodations somewhere underneath his Adam's apple. The only room he hasn't looked is--

He rushes down the hallway once again, to the last door, to the bathroom, almost imagining Ryan on the tiled floor, unconscious for some reason or another and skids to a halt at the opened door.

"Ryan?" Seth breathes out, his voice cracking, his heart freezing for one second until it beats again, rapidly and erratically.

His gaze roams over Ryan's face as he takes a step forward, hearing glass snapping under his sneaker clad feet. Seth looks down, the light coming from somewhere in the hallway catching on the glass, making it shine like pearls on a black background and his breathing stops on his throat. He glances to the right, to the sink, where he finds blood drying on the white porcelain, then up to the thin fissures on the mirror going to a circular center and in a moment he remembers watching Ryan from the doorway of the pool house. Ryan, diving his fist into the leather sand bag, watching Ryan pant and hiss and keep on hitting his hand, covered in a white, hitting the leather and feeling something inside him breaking each time the loud thud was heard in the silent room.

"Ryan," Seth whispers, turning around to look at Ryan, sitting on the toilet, right hand covered by his left one. Seth can still see the blood in between his fingers, down his wrist and a few almost brown droplets on the legs of his jeans. It's then that he notices Ryan's bare feet. "Shit. Are you okay? What--?"

"Shards of glass," Ryan says with a shrug, not looking up from his lap, from somewhere beyond his hands. "I can't see them."

"Okay, okay." Seth closes his eyes for a second, the image of Ryan punching the mirror, staggering backwards and then sitting to wait on the toilet for him to arrive too much for his brain to handle for a second. He nods, breathing in as he does so. "Shit. Okay. I'll dust them, vacuum them. Give me a minute. Fuck."

He leaves the bathroom in a hurry, getting the small duster from the closet and rushing back to the bathroom. He turns on the light, not glancing at Ryan as he does so. He doesn't need to. He can see Ryan placing his hand over his eyes, hissing at the change in light, at the pain in the back of his head. Seth can see all this because he's seen it before, he's seen it a thousand times and he'll see it a thousand times more before the end of his life.

He squats by the doorway, duster in hand, glancing between the floor and the shards he can't see but knows are there and Ryan's bare feet. His heart keeps on beating in his throat and it takes Seth a minute to realize that Ryan's still bleeding from his left hand, another droplet joining its cousin on Ryan's jeans.

"Fuck," he says under his breath, and what the fuck is he doing cleaning the floor when Ryan--

He shakes his head, places the duster on the glass shelf on the corner of the bathroom and takes a step forward. His hand reaches out, his face in a grimace as he hears the shards turn into dust under his feet. He watches Ryan blink, look at him but not quite see him. Ryan's looking at him, but too far to his right, over his shoulder, not quite seeing him. It has happened before, it will happen again, and it still knocks the air out of his lungs.

His fingers tremble as they touch Ryan's right wrist. He pulls back, as if burned at the hiss coming from Ryan's lips. "I have to-- just wait here." 

Seth turns around and makes his way to his bedroom, where the small first-aid kit lies because Ryan didn't want to have it in the kitchen and Kirsten refused to let them live there without a first-aid kit at hand. The bottle of hydrogen peroxide falls from his shaking hands twice before he can pick it up, along with the cotton swaps. He runs to Ryan's bedroom for his slippers and rushes back to the bathroom. He lets everything fall down onto the floor before placing the slippers on Ryan's feet, sighing with relief for a second.

Cotton in his right hand, Seth's left hand reaches for Ryan's right one. Ryan sighs, a low sound in the back of his throat, before his left hand falls to his side, and offers his right one. The skin is white around the knuckles, blood over knuckles and the back of the palm, the wrist and a line down the inside of his forearm. Seth squats before Ryan, cradling carefully the hand in his left one, and pours the peroxide on the cotton with one hand and applies it gently over Ryan's knuckles.

Ryan hisses, Seth watching him press his lips into a thin line and probably biting the inside of his cheek. Seth closes his eyes, then dabs the cotton again, and wishes he could say something.

Seth brushes the peroxide damp cotton over the knuckles, making sure there are no shards inside the cuts, the open skin. "I don't know if you need stitches or not." He swallows, glances up at Ryan for a second. "Maybe we should go to the hospital."

Ryan lifts his head at that, after having kept his gaze to his lap, his words to himself and barely made a sound beyond hissing twice, Seth notices from the corner of his eyes. "No."

"Ryan--"

" _No_."

Seth sighs, pressing the cotton a bit harder on the knuckles than he should have, hearing Ryan hiss but Ryan has always been too stubborn, too bullheaded. Either you face him head on or you let yourself out of the room. Seth had done so before, faced him and put his foot down and hoped to God Ryan wouldn't just push him out of the car back in Newport, three years ago, when Seth had told him he was going with him to look for Volchek.

"You could need stitches, you know," Seth says with a snort, because it's all nice and good while Ryan's health on the table. "There could be shards of glass here that I can't see."

"I'm not going, Seth. Period." A pause, a harsh breath coming from Ryan's mouth, before he finishes, "they'll say I need to see a psychiatrist."

Seth's breath catches in his throat because God, he's thought of this before. He talked with his parents about this, about Ryan needing therapy to cope with the changes in his life, that maybe the whole family needed it, Seth especially, because they are sharing a house, a life. They've talked about it and it was painfully obvious Ryan would have a nervous breakdown before actually going to therapy on his own two feet. "Well," Seth says even against his better judgment, "maybe we do. Maybe we--"

" _We?_ "

Seth blinks, looking up from the raw skinned knuckles to look at Ryan's face. Ryan, looking right at him -- right at _him_ \-- like he can see Seth clearly, shooting him a look Seth had never seen before and never wants to see again, a look of pure anger and disdain in the set of the lips, in the pull of the mouth.

"There is no _we_ , Seth," Ryan grits through his teeth, the name sliding off his tongue as if it tastes foul, as if he wants nothing more than to spit it out before it burns a whole through his flesh. Seth feels like he's been slapped. "There is only me in this fucking darkness."

Seth gasps, stumbling backwards and to the side, catching himself on his propped up arms as Ryan stands up and pushes past him and out of the bathroom. Seth breathes harsh and loud through his mouth, the peroxide bottle falling from his lap. He sits there, on the tiled floor of the bathroom for a second, eyes fixed on the doorway and closes his eyes.

Seth sighs, pushes himself on his feet and follows Ryan out of the bathroom, not caring about the broken mirror, the blood on the sink or the shards still on the floor. Not caring about anything but Ryan and Ryan alone.

*****

Ryan walks down the hallway, past his bedroom on his right and Seth's on his left, into the space between the kitchen and the living room that will always remind him of the den he left behind in Newport. He's careful. He's learned to be careful, not to tumble against the kitchen counter, not to hit the side of the couch, to know where the small kitchen table is, to always pull the chairs under it. He's learned to be careful because there's nothing he hates more than stumbling and falling because he wasn't counting, because he forgot where exactly he was standing, because he can't see details anymore.

His skin itches, again, and worse than before. He scratches his left forearm absently, cursing in the back of his throat as his fingers curl and his knuckles ache from the skin, down to his palm. He walks to where the apartment ends, and turns around, knowing the kitchen is at his right, the table not seven paces from him; the couch on his left, five to the edge of the same and the start of the armchair. He closes his eyes and feels a scream dying in his throat, on his lips before it's fully formed.

"Ryan."

He blinks, seeing a silhouette he knows is Seth and tells himself to breathe. To think his words through, to not act without thinking. Not to scream until his throat is raw, until he can feel blood in his throat the same way he could feel it on his fingers only minutes before and fuck--

"Ryan, don't do this."

He can't see Seth's eyes. He can't see the expression in the eyes that speak a thousand words even before Seth can get them through his mouth and out in the air. He can't fucking see and that's enough to fuel everything inside him. Everything's too much and too strong. He has wondered what it would feel like to pluck his eyes out of their sockets with a fork before but he has never wanted to actually do it until fucking now.

"I don't even know what happened!" Seth turns around, looking at the door, probably, and Ryan bites his lower lip to keep himself from saying anything. "I just came in here and you were in the bathroom and you had put your hand through the fucking mirror! I have no idea what you were thinking and then you're getting mad at me!"

"You don't know shit, Seth, that's the fucking problem."

Ryan had told himself he'd hold back, he wouldn't say a fucking thing. But it's as though his skin has given up the fight, peeled back and he's been left exposed and raw. He can't, because this is too much and Seth can't see that. Seth can't see that because Seth can _see_.

Ryan can see enough to see Seth recoil back and can imagine Seth's face going blank, like Ryan has physically slapped him. He knows, because he's seen that face before. He felt like shit the few times he put that look on Seth's face before. But right now, Ryan thrives on it. It fuels him from the inside out and he can't help but push, dig in deeper even as the knife sinks into the willing flesh.

He takes a step forward, anger hot and slick in his belly, right hand clenching into a fist, and the pain it draws in his nerves making him shiver.

"Are you losing your sight, too, Seth?" He can feel his face contorting into a smile, so ugly he can almost feel it hurt on his lips, on his skin. "Have you stopped being able to distinguish color? Are the shades so blurred that everything is nothing but gray and black and white? Does your head fucking pound inside your skull so hard, so often that you've forgotten what it feels like to not have a headache?"

Ryan waits, but Seth just stands there, not moving. He can't see Seth's face, fuck, he can't see his face but he imagines Seth staring back at him, mouth set in a thin line, something Seth picked up from him and it's like taking a match to tinder. Fury wells up and he pushes the words from his mouth in a graceless rush he's picked up from Seth himself. 

"Do you have to stop driving, to give up school, to realize that you won't be able to fend for yourself because there's no fucking way in hell you're finishing your career because you can't see a fucking wall before you, so _how the fuck_ are you going to see blueprints?" His throat is tight, and the back of his eyes hurt and sting and he still pushes forward. "Do you know you won't ever see your parents again, your home? Do you know what it's like to stand in the middle of your bedroom, in the middle of the fucking night, and fear taking a step forward to go to the bathroom because you could kill yourself along the way?" Ryan takes in a breath. Seth's quiet and stupid and _there_ , and Ryan continues. "No, you don't, so don't fucking come and tell me how _we_ can't handle this, okay?"

Ryan can feel his temples throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He's breathing through his mouth, like he's run a marathon. Like he's hit Seth. He blinks and looks at Seth and imagines what he'd see, fills in the blanks and closes his eyes because he can't do that, he can't see Seth and not see him at the same time.

"Okay, okay. I don't know. Okay?"

Ryan opens his eyes, glances at Seth. At the general direction of Seth. For a moment he wants to take a step forward, to see clearer, but pushes that thought away with a snort.

"You know that. I don't know shit about what you're going through but I'm here!" And Seth doesn't stop, Ryan doesn't expect him to. This is Seth and Ryan has pushed them both to the breaking point, so he tucks his hands under his arms and feels the anger seething inside him, around him, and waits. "I'm right here, Ryan! I haven't gone anywhere, I'm right here and it's you who's pulling away, you don't want to-- Don't want to--"

Ryan wants to scream back, to hit him. For a second he actually wants to hit Seth and wonders what it would feel like, before he tastes the disgust in his throat, on his tongue. He waits. 

"I don't know what! But you're not yourself, you haven't been in a while."

Ryan snorts, shakes his head once. When he opens his mouth, the words rush out in a yell. "I'm going blind, Seth, of course I'm not myself!" He says, viciously. "And you're not right here."

"I am!"

"For now!" Ryan swallows, trying to find the words and give them to Seth because he doesn't think he can do this anymore, he doesn't think he has the strength. "You will leave! In two years you'll finish college and then you'll get a job and you'll leave me and I--"

He pauses, turns around, away from Seth and feels everything boiling inside him, simmering anger and frustration and fear and dread and he groans in the back of his throat and gives in.

" _Fuck._ " Ryan slams the side of his injured hand closed in a fist against the back of the couch. The pain jars him to this teeth. "I don't know how to do this without you anymore!"

And he stands there, breathing hard in his throat, words practically tearing from his skin even as his hands clench into fists, something pulling inside him and he feels blood forming on his right hand. Fuck, he said too much, but this is all Seth's fault, it always has been, because he did this. Seth made him fucking dependent on him. On Seth's touch, on Seth's hands. On his elbow, shoulder against Ryan's as they lie together on the bed in the middle of the night. Ryan doesn't know how to find his north without Seth by his side anymore. 

Maybe Kirsten was right. Maybe he should leave, pull away, give himself some fucking room. Put miles in between him and Seth, hide in Newport if he has to, pretend he can do this alone, he can do this without Seth's touch.

Fingers on his jaw pull his face forward and he can't see Seth's face, nothing but an outline in dark gray and white and black, but he can almost feel him. Ryan fills in the blanks, this time without anger.

"Don't do that."

Words with a tone he can almost recognize. Ryan tries to shake away, to take a step back and then there are arms wrapped around his shoulders, hauling him in, holding him so tightly, Ryan can barely breathe.

Ryan's hands come up to fist in Seth's shirt, and his face is mashed gracelessly against Seth's neck and all Ryan can do is breathe in and smell the ocean and the sand of such a lifetime ago. And with his next breath, Ryan can feel Seth shaking.

"Don't do that, God, don't do that. Do you think I don't know you? Do you think I can't fucking see you running away? Wondering how much money you have in your pocket and if you can call the airport from the cab before getting onto a plane for Newport? Do you think I don't _know you_?"

Ryan wants to pull back, to take a step back and tell himself Seth's not all he needs. But he can't. He can't lie to himself, not after this. Not when he noses the tender skin on Seth's neck where it meets his shoulder, not when his hands shake even as they hold on so tight that his knuckles ache from numbing pain.

"I can't leave, Ryan, don't you get it? I can't leave," Seth whispers against Ryan's hair, against the side of Ryan's face and Ryan has to close his eyes, shut down his face and tell himself to breathe. "I couldn't-- I could never-- You gotta believe me, Ryan, God, you gotta trust me on this one." One of Seth's hands moves to the back of Ryan's neck, the other grazing up and down his spine, fingers not quite touching Ryan, as if he's not certain he has the right to touch. "I could never-- This is it, Ryan. There's no--"

Ryan shakes his head once, telling himself he'll pull away with the next breath, with the next breath. "You graduate in two years, Seth. I can't expect you--"

Seth pulls back and Ryan bites his lower lip to keep himself from making an undignified sound in the back of his throat. "What? What can't you expect me to do? What can't you possibly ask of me?" Seth takes in an unsteady breath, Ryan notices by the sound, the hand on his neck falling to his waist and the other one moving to hold him by the forearm. "Stay here, with you? Live with you? Share a life with you? I've been doing that for the last six years, Ryan. It hasn't exactly been hard."

"Oh," Ryan says, because he can't find words, he can't... If Seth--

"I... I'm not going to go away, Ryan. No matter what." Seth laughs, a sad sound that has nothing to the memory of Seth's laughter, brown eyes light and happy and joyful, head thrown back, to the side, the two of them down on the pier. "God, you're going to go away first, you know? You're going to get tired of me hovering and decide to get a life, finally, thousand of miles away from me."

There's a pause and Ryan doesn't know what to say, how to say--

"You already did."

Ryan blinks, glances up to Seth's face. He only sees the edge of the face he knows like he knows his own, remembers the catch of light on Seth's hair and knows the way the brown color changes under the Newport sun.

"What, when? I'm _right here_ ," Ryan says, with a slight edge to his voice that he washes away with the clearing of his throat. 

"No, no," Seth says, shaking his head, and Ryan can see the movement and feel his hands tightening on Seth's side. "You weren't. You were going to leave. You were going to leave me. You were going to go to Berkeley and go to college and have a life and have friends who aren't half the loser I am, I will always be. And you were going to forget me and only see me during holidays and not fucking talk to me at all unless it's to ask me how I was doing and do the thing siblings do when they ask each other and they don't _care_."

Seth's voice, his _tone_. Ryan might not see his face, but he doesn't have to. He never needed to. "Oh, Seth--"

But Seth shakes his head and this time is him who lays his hand on Ryan's shoulder, breathing in deeply. Seth's nose touches underneath Ryan's jaw, throat, pulse point and makes him shiver unintentionally.

"I--" Seth says, after a second, pulling back, but the words die there and Ryan knows they don't need them. They didn't need them six years ago, they don't need them now.

And Ryan can't stop himself from reaching forward, fingers touching Seth's eyebrows, down to his high cheekbones, pausing for a second. He can't stop himself because this is Seth, close in a way he might never be again, and for Ryan to touch even without written permission, and he has to. 

He sighs, fingers moving down to the center of Seth's cheek, not alone anymore, not mad at being lost in the middle of his very own home. They move down to Seth's chin and Ryan hears Seth moaning in the back of his throat, and warm air leaves Seth's mouth as he whispers. "I'm not leaving you, Ryan. Never. I couldn't. I can't. I promise."

Ryan looks up and his eyes are weak but they fight against the dim light coming from the opened windows of the living room and the street light across from the building. 

"You say so much with your eyes," Ryan breathes out, finally saying the words he hasn't dared to say for months. "You always so much with your eyes. I can't see them anymore, Seth. What are you saying with your eyes?"

Seth's face moves closer, the light dimming slightly and his eyes weakening and it's all shades of gray and white and black for a second before color returns. Brown eyes are vivid and alive and Ryan can almost see inside himself after seeing inside Seth.

"I'm saying I love you," Seth breathes against Ryan's mouth, and Ryan catches the words on the tip of his tongue and they taste too sweet. "But I can say it just as loudly with words."

Ryan watches Seth lean forward, nose touching the curve of Ryan's own, where his nose meets his cheek, and lets out a long sigh. Seth's lips are close to the edge of his mouth, and Ryan can feel the breath Seth exhales on his lips. Seth moves forward again, and their first kiss is shy and mellow, nearly not one at all, their mutual touch is so hesitant. It doesn't last a thought, and seems to dissolve back into nothing but air leaving their lungs, leaving them both breathless for all it's gentleness.

When Ryan pulls away, Seth's hands cup his face, bringing them closer still. Ryan holds onto Seth's shirt tightly again, needing the safe harbor that provides, Seth's touch too familiar on his skin and yet not familiar enough. 

Seth pulls away first this time, and Ryan blinks and wishes he could see the way Seth flutters his eyes, the way Seth's lips are pressed, how his eyes say that his mouth doesn't, what his very body language wants to tell Ryan and he wants nothing more than to listen. "Seth--"

"I love you," Seth whispers again, in between the living room they use for a den and the kitchen, in the house they've lived in for the past two and a half years, in the lives they've shared for the last six. "I love you, I just don't know how to say it."

Ryan gives him a rueful smile, right and tightening and aching, but the pain fades to the background in a second. "I think you're doing a very good job."

"You don't have to do this alone, if you don't want to." Seth leans his forehead against Ryan's, his voice soft, like a whisper in the night. "I'm here, Ryan, God, I'm here if you'll take me."

Ryan himself stands still, afraid to even breathe, Seth might move. He's been so fixated on everything he's lost, on keeping himself upright, he'd almost forgotten that his own fears are mixed up in this too.

He thinks about ghosts with just voices, and about the first time he sat next to this boy in the den in Newport, how he did it again two months ago and how every choice he's ever made, all the wrong ones and the few right ones, has brought him to this point in his life. To Seth in his arms and an offering as good as a ring in Seth's lips.

"I'll take you," Ryan says against Seth's mouth, kissing him with a confidence that's almost a lie, he's so afraid, shivering as an unsteady breath chases across his throat. "I'll take you, if you don't mind the blind part of this purchase."

"Hey, hey, hey."

Seth's hand, on his cheek, cupping it so lovingly Ryan has to sigh, bite the inside of his cheek because there's no doubt there's love in that simple touch. Ryan doesn't remember the last time someone touched him so intimately.

"No nothing, Ryan. This is first choice for me. Has been for so long, I followed you all the way here from wherever it was I thought I could go to school." Seth blinks at him, looks right at him and nods. "It's always been you," Seth finishes with a whisper, nothing but breath leaving his lips, and his thumb starts caressing Ryan's cheekbone.

He can do this, Ryan thinks. He can let everything show on his face if he's not the one that has to read it in a language that's not his own anymore, in a language that he learned and then forgot. So he does just that, opens his face when he can't open his mouth and whisper everything he wishes he had the words to say.

And then Seth's breath catches in his throat and Ryan recognizes the sound for what it is, and he's being pulled forward in another kiss and whatever it was they wanted to say, it ends with a kiss and a whisper and it's enough.

*****

Kissing Ryan is easier than it should be, it's as sweet as going home, and it feels like the sun on his face and Ryan's laughter next to him. It's perfect and easy and comfortable, like he's done it a thousand times and he'll do it a thousand more. Like he knows how to do this, like he has never stopped.

Seth pulls away and his right hand moves with him, taking Ryan's left one in his, and his fingers touch the back of Ryan's palm hesitantly. They are only now discovering each other, no matter how long he has known he's wanted this, nothing but Ryan and kisses and soft touches. He intertwines their fingers together, slowly, gently, a smile forming on his lips. 

He glances at Ryan's right hand, blood dampening the knuckles. He curses under his breath and reaches for Ryan's right hand with his left one, bringing it closer to him. "You need bandages."

Ryan sighs, looking down at his hand on Seth's grasp. Seth looks into blue eyes that used to look at him and find answers, like Seth is words written on a white canvas. It pains him, every second of every day, that there's nothing he can do to fix this. But he's gotten used to it. Seth might not know what it feels like to lose your eyesight a little every day, but he knows what it feels like to watch the one you care for go through that. It hurts as much as Seth has ever been hurt.

"Sit down, please," Seth says, not because Ryan might fall, but because he might and somehow, he wants Ryan sitting down to catch him and God, he's being an idiot.

With a hand on Ryan's elbow, Seth steers him around the couch. Ryan sits down, bringing his right hand closer to his face for inspection. Something catches in Seth's chest, something heavy and with iron teeth that sink into soft flesh in a second, making it bleed. 

Seth swallows past the tightness in his throat and stands up straight. "I'm gonna--" He says before leaving the den and moving to his bedroom, this time bringing the first-aid kit with him. 

He sits down on the small center table, first-aid kit by his side, and takes out the bandages. The cotton and hydrogen peroxide are probably somewhere on the floor of the bathroom, and for a moment he can't believe that he did that -- cleaned Ryan's cuts -- not even half an hour ago when it feels like a lifetime has passed in between.

The knuckles are humid with blood and Seth sighs under his breath. He wraps a small piece of bandage around Ryan's hand, looking for something to pin it with and cursing under his breath when he realizes that even if the thing was the size of an elephant, he wouldn't know how the hell it looked.

"It looks like butterfly wings, the pins," Ryan says with a shrug. "Silver. Metal. With butterfly wings inside them. Something like that. They should be in there."

Seth nods, looking for them and finding a small bag of about ten of those things, and pulling one out. It takes him a moment to figure out the mechanics of the thing, to catch the bandages tight enough. He lets go of Ryan's hands, busying himself with placing everything inside the bag and making sure it fits so he can zip it.

"Seth."

Seth looks up, at Ryan's eyes, looking right at him. Right at him. The light is dim around him, the sun having set minutes ago, but it's enough for him to see Ryan's face, Ryan's expression, the thinness of his lips, the tightness around his eyes. He knows Ryan, knows that now that there is space in between them, not anger lashing out with words, it's easy for Ryan to nitpick everything. To second guess, come with a different answer. Seth knows, because that's Ryan, and the one doing impulsive things has always been himself.

So he does the one thing he can think of. He goes face first and hopes Ryan will not shove him away this time around. He sits on the small coffee table, as far on the edge as he can, before sinking to his knees in front of Ryan, in between Ryan's legs. He can hear Ryan's breath catching in his throat and that's good, taking Ryan by surprise is rare and always good.

Seth reaches for Ryan's left hand, his unhurt hand, and brings it to closer to his own eyes. He can see the small and blondish hairs on the back of Ryan's hand where it meets the wrist, thinks about kissing the inside of his wrist, his palm, and doesn't because that would be too silly of himself and Ryan might shove him away.

Instead, he looks at Ryan. Seth has noticed the way Ryan watches him, sees his face, hands, shoulders and hair, like it might be the last time Ryan ever lies eyes on him. He looks at Ryan like Ryan has looked at Seth, with hungry eyes, carving sight into memory.

He thinks, or he harbors the idea in the back of his mind -- where all memories of Ryan in the past six years lie -- that Ryan might have been memorizing him. Hand clasped in both of his, Seth brings Ryan's left hand to his face, spreads it so Ryan's fingers cups his cheek, and leans into the touch with a sigh from his lips and his eyes closing slowly.

"Can I--?"

Seth nods at the question, a question he had feared Ryan might not be able to ask, so Seth asks it for him.

"Yeah," Seth says unnecessarily, because Ryan's left hand moves from where it cups Seth's face to his cheekbones, down to his chin and jaw, to his throat and back again. Seth sighs, blinks slowly, lazily, and lets Ryan fill up on sight and touch and tells himself this is not the feeling of his heart breaking because this is him, watching Ryan watch him, and if there's nothing he can do for Ryan, then he can at least do this.

Seth kneels there, as the time ticks by and the night catches them finally and he has no idea how long they are just there, what time it is, until his legs go numb and his knees start to hurt but he's there and he doesn't care. It doesn't matter as Ryan's hands roam his face, fingertips touching carefully and almost fearfully, even his right hand, bandages and all, joins in the search and Seth almost follows Ryan's hands when they leave his jaw and go for his eyebrows and his eyelids and touch and touch.

When Ryan's fingers know his face like they know their own skin, when Ryan has mapped every single line on Seth's face twice over, Ryan sighs and pulls back, his hands falling to his lap. Ryan blinks his eyes tiredly, and Seth notices that his headache is back by the slight pull of his mouth, making it almost impossible for Ryan to breathe without something hurting inside. Seth knows this face too, because he's become horribly used to it.

"Can I kiss you?" Seth asks plaintively, his voice tight and low, because he can't help but feel that if he doesn't, he might lose Ryan before he ever really had him.

Ryan reaches out, hesitantly, and touches his hair, stroking it a little. Seth's breath catches in his throat as the touch becomes confident, his fingers moving from Seth's forehead to the ends of his hair, running his fingers through it as if he does so every night as they fall asleep.

"Yes," Ryan whispers out of his mouth and into Seth because Seth's leaning forward before the word is even fully formed.

Seth smiles against the kiss, hands cupping Ryan's face and holding it close, so close he can smell Ryan's skin and hair and touch and tell himself it's Ryan, Ryan accepted him, Ryan has him.

*****

They have dinner in almost companionable silence, if not entirely comfortable. Ryan doesn't reach for Seth, but moves around the apartment without doubt. Ryan doesn't say a word even as Seth dusts the remaining shards on the bathroom floor. Seth doesn't ask about putting a hand through the mirror, mostly because he's learned to pick his battles -- God knows where he got it from, probably from Ryan -- and this isn't one of them. Well, it kind of is, just not right now. Not when Ryan's still skittish around him, at times, when Seth places his hand on Ryan and it's not his shoulder or his elbow.

So Seth's smart about this and doesn't push his luck, not until it's past ten and Ryan's making for his bedroom. Seth goes by his, changes into the loose sweats he wears for bed and a t-shirt and pauses for a second just inside his bedroom, against a wall. He breathes in through his mouth and out again, slowly, telling himself that if Ryan doesn't really want him, well, he's going to shove him off the bed, that's for sure. And Seth can get a dent on his pride by falling on his ass, but he doesn't think his heart will recover.

Whatever, he thinks to himself. Ryan's there. And he's been sleeping in Ryan's bedroom almost nightly for the last two months, and the summer before that, sharing one bed in the twin suite, and about another week at the end of the last school year. Even if nothing were to happen, even if Ryan were to pull away from his kiss -- and God, he can feel the iron teeth having another go at whatever it is they liked inside him -- then Seth will stay, keep Ryan company, on his own side of the bed. 

Seth makes his way out of his bedroom and across the hall to Ryan's, who's lying on his back, eyes blinking owlishly at the ceiling. He takes in a deep breath and doesn't say a word. He never has when he does this, walking into Ryan's bedroom without asking. He doesn't now either. He moves to the side of the bed, his side of the bed, and pushes back the covers and crawls inside, on Ryan's left side. He lies on his back as well, watching the ceiling and controlling his breathing.

Seth glances down at Ryan's left hand, just in the corner of his eyesight, and notices that both hands are clenched on the sheets. Ryan does this almost every night. Seth's never asked him about it, what Ryan thinks when he does that, or what he remembers. He hasn't dared. And he won't ask him tonight either.

Instead, Seth turns to his side, pressing his face against Ryan's neck and hearing the sigh catching in Ryan's throat. Feeling bold, Seth's left hand moves until it finds Ryan's right one, and curls their fingers together. His lips move against Ryan's skin, his breath warm on Ryan's shoulder, shifting slightly until he's touching Ryan's collarbone with his lips.

He kisses the skin there, small perfect kisses. He can feel his throat closing up because he's never done this before, he's never had the permission to care for Ryan like he can now, with silent words and soft kisses.

"Seth," Ryan mutters, as the light kisses move from his collarbone up to his jaw. "Seth."

Seth's left hand moves to Ryan's hip, to his stomach, rubbing small circles on the perfect skin. He shifts until his body covers most of Ryan's, right hand moving to the side of Ryan's face, thumb stroking over cheekbone. 

"It's okay," Seth sighs, whispers against the skin he's kissing. "I'm here." He wishes he could say more, Ryan would take more from him. "I've got you," he exhales as he closes his eyes, nuzzling the skin over Ryan's throat. "I've got you."

Ryan sighs softly, a broken sound that might have been a sob if allowed to leave Ryan's lips, and Seth presses his lips in the hollow of his collarbone, his eyes closed, pain practically radiating from Ryan in waves. Seth doesn't ask, but tells himself one day he will. Ryan's hands let go of the sheets and move to Seth's body, one on his hip, the other on the back of his neck. Ryan doesn't say a word, neither does Seth.

They lie like that for long minutes that feel like they could be hours, days. Seth kissing the skin available under his touch; Ryan sighing and breathing and hardly moving, except his hands moving with Seth's body. Seth placing his head on Ryan's chest, ear against the muscles and hearing a heart beat loudly underneath, feeling happy and content and home. 

Ryan sighs slow and long, and Seth recognizes the sound, he's heard it so often in the past years. He murmurs words under his breath, not knowing what he's saying but saying it still, wishing his words held reassurances that would mean something.

"Ryan," Seth says softly, and feels the body underneath his shift to curl closer to him. He repeats the name, over and over, soothingly.

"Seth," Ryan mutters softly, in his sleep.


	8. vii.

Nothing changes much, after that afternoon in late October. Seth doesn't push, doesn't think he could, even if his skin tingles with pent up energy and he wants to discover Ryan's skin under his clothes, figure out what makes him moan, makes him writhe. He takes the status quo and runs with it, takes his cues from Ryan, who doesn't reach for him, who doesn't kiss him.

He goes to his classes, talks very little of them for fear of tilting the fragile balance they seem to have reached. Ryan goes to his classes at the Braille Institute and Seth feels like an idiot from the moment he found out about Ryan's RP until this very second. Seth picks up Ryan one afternoon and while Ryan goes to the bathroom, Nick Langley pulls Seth to the side, away from the hallway from where people are coming and going.

Seth frowns, opening his mouth to speak but Nick is quicker.

"Have you thought about joining us in a few classes?"

Seth blinks, taken back and confused, and he wonders how Nick reads it when the man can't see it showing in Seth's face.

"You live with Ryan, right? Ryan said you've been living together for the past six years."

And Seth knows how that sounds. He coughs into his hand. "What he meant--"

"I know what he meant, Seth. Ryan explained how your parents adopted him."

Yeah, and that doesn't sound weird.

"My point is, you're the one living with him. You have to make changes in your everyday life--" 

"I have!" And he has. He's learned not to be a slob anymore, on the sheer principle that if he so much as leaves a t-shirt on the floor, Ryan could fall face first against the edge of the coffee table and kill himself. Seth has never known motivation like that, enough to make him stop and think about where he puts everything. 

"Yes, Ryan told me about it as well."

Seth blinks, seeing Nick -- about twenty years older than them, blind for longer than Seth has been alive -- tilting his head, as if hearing something Seth can't quite catch on, before turning around once again. 

"I think it'd be good. For you and him."

That's all Seth needs. He nods, biting his lower lip as he notices his stupidity. "Sure, okay. I'll--"

"You can come to our morning session tomorrow?"

He has a class at ten, but he'll skip it. For Ryan-- He swallows. "Yeah, of course."

"Good. We'll set a few sessions around your schedule."

And it was done, just like that. Ryan walks out of the bathroom about two seconds later, and Seth smiles and thanks Nick and they make their way out of the Institute.

The next morning, Seth talks with the building commission -- three women, and they remind him too much of the Newpsies for him not to shudder -- and he finds out that they can have a dog, but they have to pay a fee to the building commission and he doesn't mind the fact that is one hell of a fee.

Seth wants a German Shepherd, a big dog that can get in between Ryan and a fucking car, if Ryan wasn't paying attention. And he realizes the reason behind his fixation with that bred one afternoon in the middle of class, when the picture of something he saw years ago, almost ten years ago, comes to mind. He remembers, watching this show about something or other and this woman, this blind woman, saying that she had been saved by her dog when she had fallen unconscious on her apartment. The dog had been a German Sheppard. The dog had saved her. Ergo, Ryan needed a German Sheppard. Weird, yes, but Seth had never really been a conventional kind of guy.

Seth sits at dinner with Ryan next to him, and he can't help but notice the little things, the way Ryan touches the edge of the table before his hands move from the edge to the center, to the plate, how by touch alone, he finds the silverware. His breath catches in his throat and he recognizes this as something Ryan has to have learned in his classes.

"I talked with Nick today."

Ryan blinks, lifting his face, blue eyes looking back at him. Blue eyes, perfect shade, blue eyes--

"Oh," Ryan says, and Seth has to blink to come here, to look at Ryan and not feel something inside him break. "Yeah," Ryan lowers his face, his chin, tilted to the side, away from him, and Seth can see the boy he met six years ago in that simple quirk. "He said he might talk to you."

"I'm going to class. With you. Tomorrow."

Ryan looks at him at that. "You have--"

"I can skip a class. Jane will lend me her notes, I'm sure. Don't worry."

Seth watches the way Ryan's lips pull, almost tight, and he knows Ryan wants to say something, add something, but he stops himself. He wants to grimace, to reach and turn Ryan's face to him and kiss him, but does neither from fear of being seen and felt.

They fall into silence after that, easy if not quite comfortable, and at night, dressed in loose sweats and a t-shirt, Seth still crawls into Ryan's bed, making very little sound. Not pushing, not like that night. He doesn't cover Ryan's body with his, he doesn't kiss the skin under his touch. Seth only lies on his back, on Ryan's left side, his right hand holding Ryan's left one, thumb caressing the back of the palm, when Seth feels Ryan's hand tightening in his in the middle of the night, in the middle of another nightmare, muttering reassurances in Ryan's ear that Ryan doesn't remember in the morning. The nightmares don't stop, but Ryan still doesn't talk about them, and because Ryan doesn't wake up screaming with Seth's name in his lips, Seth keeps quiet and worries in silence.

They fall into a routine, like they always do, like they do best. There's more to mobility training than Seth ever imagined, and he only watches Ryan during one session -- Ryan, blindfold over his eyes because there will come a time when he might not be able to see beyond his nose, touching the edge of a wall, steps hesitant -- and that was more than enough for Seth to feel like he might die if he has to watch it again, if he has to leave Ryan again in the hands of Nick, who says the first months are always the hardest but they've done hard and this certainly wasn't in the brochure.

Seth has a few sessions of his own. Different than Ryan's, teaching far too much, more than he ever thought possible. There are things he can do to help Ryan, to make it easier. Things he has to do for Ryan to be able to live in his very own home. Seth feels like he's two and an idiot after those classes. And he frets. And he feels like an idiot even as he frets. He thinks about therapy and knows Ryan will refuse. He thinks about buying a guide dog but doesn't want to push, especially after Nick tells him that _Ryan will do it in his own time._

November passes in something of a blur. Ryan wears his dark glasses most of the time, and the pull on the corners of his eyes seem to be there, all the time, always, and Seth feels like something has gotten hold of his chest and will not let go. How do you breathe when all you can think of is worry in big bold letters?

They go to Newport for Thanksgiving because Seth's certain, only mentioning that the parents could make the trip instead of them will get him a glare and a pinched look Seth's trying to cut back.

They arrive on Newport on a Friday. The parents ask very little, instead let them set the mood. Ryan talks about his classes in the Braille Institute as he touches Sophie's face, almost as if trying to remember her. Seth mentions his only in passing. That afternoon, Ryan goes to lie down for a bit. Seth can see Ryan's headache getting the best of him in the frown in between his eyes, and the way Ryan's shoulders are set let Seth know that he hates to have to take a nap.

About half an hour after Ryan has gone upstairs, enough for Ryan to fall asleep and Seth breathe a little bit easier, he talks to the parents. He tells them in short sentences, his hands clasped in his lap, about them not quite being together. He doesn't mention the hand on the mirror. He thinks about it for a second but doesn't, because he knows his mom will freak out and his dad will worry. And Ryan will hate him to the core.

After he's finished, Sandy tells him that this isn't something to play with and Seth glares at his father at the mere suggestion that he might. He loves Ryan, he tells them, and if Ryan doesn't want anything to do with him, if Ryan wants Seth to move to Antarctica, he will. Anything Ryan asks of him. And they are not doing anything Ryan doesn't start.

Their interaction doesn't really change. They don't kiss nor hold hands. The only difference is that Seth sleeps in Ryan's bedroom instead of the two of them in the pool house. Ryan doesn't mention the fact that the pool house is not longer his. No one does. If Seth feels his hand being held on such a tight grip that Friday, he doesn't say anything. If Seth wakes up twice that night, Ryan curled into himself and his back to Seth, hands gripping the sheets around him so tight his knuckles are white, Seth only brushes back Ryan's hair and touches his shoulder, down his arm, to take the hand back in his. If Ryan lets him and slowly uncurls, Seth keeps quiet about it as well.

Seth doesn't mind waking up and making his way to the bathroom, showering and then waiting for Ryan to do the same to make their way down to the kitchen. He doesn't mind waiting for Ryan to find his footing. He has the rest of their lives, he can wait.

The five of them try to have a nice and easy holiday. Seth wonders if that's even possible, the way everything changes around them, the way Ryan hesitates when reaching for a glass, when cutting his turkey.

He notices the way his mother hasn't renovated anything since their last visit. It's almost as if nothing has been moved, and he's grateful to her for that. And if he catches Ryan making mental blueprints, counting his paces from furniture to furniture, Seth doesn't say, doesn't ask.

The first night back in Berkeley, Seth lying on his back, right hand in Ryan's own. He takes in a deep breath and Ryan's voice breaking the silence takes him by surprise.

"It's not that I don't... It's not--"

"I know," Seth says, nodding as he does so, squeezing Ryan's hand. 

"I just..."

But the words are not found, and Seth doesn't need them anyway. He squeezes Ryan's hand once again, turning his head, nuzzling the shoulder where the hem of the shirt meets soft skin. He smiles against Ryan's t-shirt and whispers, "I know."

It had happened. They had talked. They had said what they had to say, Seth had said what he had to say. Ryan knows now, Seth thinks, a month after seeing glass on their bathroom and Ryan's right hand held to his chest by his left one. And this month, Seth had enough time to be anxious and upset and uncomfortable as much as he wanted to. He had to do it in silence, sure, but he could do it. He did it. He's past it by now.

And after all that, he was deliriously happy, being in love and finally having got what he wanted. Now, it's just a matter of waiting. And Seth might not be patient but any collector knows that rare things, the ones that are really worth it, are the ones you must look and wait for.

Ryan, Seth thinks, is just a bit scared of him. That, like all, will pass. Seth knows the truth. Ryan's only frightened because he hadn't known he'd had Seth for the last six years, as well.

Two of the six events that had changed his life since he was fifteen had involved Ryan. Two of them had happened after he'd left school.

There was going to Harbor, which had isolated him, but changed him as well. He had graduated from that school with friends and a girlfriend, something he never thought possible, because Seth had been certain he was going to get sent to boarding school or die trying.

There was also not getting into Brown, which at the moment, for Seth, had been the end of his life as he knew it. He had been dating Summer back then, and though he had thought that was the path for him, the one reason he needed to get in was because Summer was going there and he needed to be there with her. He had been wrong, but he hadn't seen that until later. Marissa dying had been a shock for everyone involved. Had broken them a little bit, and even three years later, he thinks Ryan still has the cracks left behind. And after that, it had been Summer getting that job at George.

There were two more, which the man sleeping with his hand held tightly in Seth's right one had been directly entwined. The other two events had brought him to this point, to a small apartment in Berkeley, lying down in Ryan's bed, their hands clasped together.

He should count Ryan having RP as well, but it's too recent, too soon, the wound is still raw flesh under his touch, and it hadn't exactly changed what he had already known. He might see it different in ten years, know better. The way he does now, the two points in life that had changed his.

They even started the same way.

_"Hey."_

_"Hey."_

Seth had looked back at the kid standing at the French doors leading from the kitchen to the backyard. He had smiled, and that had been it. Easy. Simple. History.

The second time.

_"Hey."_

_"Hey."_

_Seth had pushed past the doors leading to the pool house, stood by the futon, shins touching the sheets, and let the Tahiti map drop next to Ryan._

_"I'm thinking," he had said, slowly, watching Ryan put the book he had had in his hand down on his lap and look at him. "I'm thinking about going to Berkeley in the fall. With you."_

_It had been the winter of 2007 and Seth had already spoken with his dad, who had called Paul Glass, who had gotten him in within the week. He shouldn't have pulled strings like that, but his world had been upside down, and a little help might just be what he needed._

_Ryan had frown, tilted his head to the side. He was wearing his glasses because his eyes had been bothering him the last couple of days. Ryan had taken them off, pinched the bridge of his nose and put his glasses back on. He hated talking with someone without his glasses. Ryan used to say he didn't like talking with someone and not being able to see their face. Even now, at the memory of those words, Seth's chest does a funny thing in his ribcage._

_"I thought you were going to RISD with Summer."_

_Seth had shaken his head, unable to come up with a really good explanation if Ryan were to ask more questions. But Ryan is Ryan, and he hadn't asked. He'd said, "Are you sure?" Seth had nodded, assured him that yes, he was sure, and Ryan had shrugged and asked if he wanted to play the new game they had bought the week before. That had been the end of it._

Seth blinks, looks down at the hand in his, or the one around his. He looks down at the fingers intertwine, but the light is too dim and he can't tell the difference between his and Ryan's. So he doesn't. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and lets Ryan's breathing lull him to sleep.

*****

On Thursday night of that same week, Seth's sits on the couch, book in his hands. His eyes sting from the late night and the small font of the book, way past midnight and well into one in the morning. With a sigh and a groan, he lets the book fall closed on his lap after the last page has been read. He rubs his eyes with his fists, trying to remember the point of the book, the feeling behind the words and hopes against hope that he'll remember what he read for tomorrow. And it's all his fault, he knows, leaving a book for the last possible minute. And he could have read it during the break, but the last thing he wanted was to think about school while back home with Ryan.

Seth's already dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, and placing the book on the center table -- he has to remember to get it before going to school tomorrow -- he stands up and stretches, hearing more than one vertebrae pop. He groans at the stiff muscles, the back of his neck and his shoulder blades, before making his way to the hallway and into Ryan's bedroom. 

He pauses by the doorway, leaning against the edge of the wood, arms folded on his chest. A few rays of light coming from the street light cast cream and yellow shadows with touches of gray in the room. He can see the corners of the room, the dresser, the bed and Ryan's on his back, eyes closed, head tilted away from him. Seth's face twists into a grimace, his throat a bit tight. They can do this, he thinks. Ryan can do this. Ryan's stronger than he thinks, than he believes himself to be. He's stronger than this--

Seth takes in a deep shaky breath, before pushing himself off the threshold and toward the bed. He pushes back the covers, crawling into bed and letting them pool around his waist. He closes his right hand into a fist, Ryan's left one barely inches from him, on top of the covers, curled and resting against his stomach. He wants nothing more than to take hold of the hand and rub the back of Ryan's palm with his thumb, caress the skin inside his wrist.

Biting his lower lip, Seth closes his eyes, shuts them tight, and pretends he can't see the reflection of light inside his close eyelids. His hand stays in a fist until, breaths later, he falls asleep.

*****

He purrs in the back of his throat, feeling a smile on his lips. He thinks he sees nothing but dark and clouds and it feels like a dream, or a dream within a dream, but he doesn't complain, feeling content and happy and a little bit lazy. He sighs and shifts, maybe turns, he's not sure. He's relaxed and pleased and everything is good in the world, and he doesn't know why, but that's that, and it's good and he doesn't want to open his eyes and realize he's wrong, so he doesn't. He shifts again and moans, taking in a deep breath through his throat, mouth opened wide. His left hand holds on tight, tight, on something that yields under his touch and he smiles again, grins, and lets himself be turned into a muddle of something that's not quite muscle.

Something presses against his skin and he moans, his head thrown back and his hands grasping for something they can hold and this time, when he blinks, Seth knows he's not dreaming. His dreams have never felt this good, this powerful, this perfect and right.

He lifts his head, blinking at the darkness around him, the dim light through the pulled curtains, and his head is fuzzy with sleep and his eyes are not quite used to the shadows and the play of black and gray. But when he blinks again, he can see Ryan's looking back at him. Ryan, who's straddling his thighs, something he can't read in his eyes. Blue eyes Seth knows better than his own name blink back at him owlishly and for a second he wonders if Ryan can see him.

"Ryan?" Seth's voice cracks, and he clears his throat before trying again. "What--?"

But Ryan shakes his head, lowering his head, and it's only now that Seth notices that his sweatpants are low on his hips. Ryan smiles against Seth's skin, and Seth can feel that, before Ryan's tongue darts out and touches the skin on his hipbone and words leave Seth's brain and all he can think of is _oh, oh, OH._

His hands clutch at the sheets, but between one breath and the next, his left hand is taken in Ryan's right one and he looks up, blinks, tries to find it himself to focus and mouth words and finds himself lacking.

"I--" He starts, but his words ends there as Ryan pushes his t-shirt up to his chest, nuzzles the low of his stomach, the side of his navel and he thinks he can actually feel his eyes rolling back in its sockets. "God, _Ryan_ \--"

"Let me--"

Anything, Seth wants to say, but he can't, because there's a kiss being placed -- petal soft, Ryan's lips against his skin and Seth can die a happy man now -- on his stomach, the legs on either side of his tightening somehow, putting pressure on the outside of his thighs and he groans low on his throat, unable to stop.

A nose touches his skin and he bites on the inside of his cheek. Ryan, touching. Ryan, legs straddling his own. Ryan, nuzzling him. Ryan. Ryan. _Ryan--_

Ryan, who hasn't kissed him in a month, even after everything they said. Ryan, who is slowly going blind--

"Wait, wait." Seth pants as the words leave his lips and he doesn't really wants to say them, but this is Ryan, and Seth loves him too much to hurt him, even by not asking, but letting and not questioning before. "I thought you--"

*****

Ryan blinks, looking up at Seth's words, at the _wait wait_ that isn't quite spoken, but breathed out. The light is dim in the bedroom, the pull of the curtains shading his eyes, making it easier for Ryan to see the few details he can still catch. But it won't be for much longer. Even with easy light, with his glasses, even with a fucking miracle it won't be for much longer--

He can feel his throat tightening and the burning in his spine, in his lower belly subsiding, but he doesn't want that. He doesn't want to think about that, not here, not now. He's running out of time, God-dammit, if he hadn't been such a fucking idiot--

He leans forward, putting his weight on his hands on either side of Seth's chest, nuzzling Seth's neck, finding it hard to speak but needing to. And his words come out in a rush, like water from a broken dam, too fast and pushing one over the other, 

"Not enough time, Seth. God. Not enough time. I don't-- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have--" And he doesn't know what he's saying, what he's trying to say, but it's coming out of his mouth fast and too deep to stop the words, so he buries his face in the crook of Seth's neck and kisses the skin underneath and tries to tell himself to breath.

_I shouldn't have waited this long. I don't have time to wait this long._

"Hey, hey, hey."

There are hands on either side of his face, pulling him away from jaw and collarbone and skin, bringing his face close to Seth, so close, Ryan can see the brown eyes looking back at him, saying enough that words aren't needed.

"It's okay," Seth says, and Ryan feels like Seth's always saying that, always, always. "I'm here, Ryan. I'm not going anywhere."

It's not about Seth leaving, but about Ryan finding himself unable to see him. And how Ryan wants to, once, even just once, to be able to see Seth underneath him, hear him pant and know he did it, Ryan did that, put that broken voice there and be responsible for that, God, just once, just once.

"I want to see you," Ryan hisses through his mouth, lowering it and kissing Seth roughly, feeling his face in a scowl, the sting behind his eyes. He pulls away, kissing Seth's jaw, up to his cheekbones, his closed eyelids, the bridge of his nose, and somewhere in between the words pour from Ryan. "Your face, your eyes. Your eyes, a thousand times a day, Seth, what are you saying with your eyes?"

Ryan shifts his hips, feeling Seth's erection even through the sweats, hard against his thigh and Seth moans in the back of his throat, pushes against him and Ryan can't help but smile even through the pull of his lips.

"Let me, let me, let me--"

Let me see you, he thinks he says, but doesn't, instead kissing his path down to Seth's collarbone, as much as skin as he can touch over the collar of the shirt. "Off, off. _Off._ "

Seth chuckles in the back of his throat, and Ryan leans back on his heels, legs stretching over Seth's hips, and Seth pushes himself up long enough pull the shirt off and throw it to his right, falling somewhere on the floor, between the bed and the window. Ryan can feel his chest tight even as he leans down, covering Seth's collarbone with his lips, his hands touching the expanses of Seth's sides, ribs and hips and fingers barely touching the muscles of the slim back. His brain unable to stop, words going behind closed eyelids, not enough time to map these lines and contours, to know them like the back of his hands, to need them like the air he breathes.

Seth gasps, low on his throat, when Ryan licks the skin at the edge of a hollow where the clavicles meet. He grins against the skin, feeling Seth's erection against his thigh, feeling his own against Seth's hip.

I did this, Ryan thinks, lifting his face and looking at Seth, eyes closed, head thrown to the side, mouth slightly parted, half gasping, half breathing. And he wants this and more, so much more, everything in this second, while he can still see Seth's face, see the skin under his touch, know the lines that aren't exactly state lines and make a map of Seth's skin in his mind, for when he will have nothing more than his fingers and his touch and his lips and his kisses.

A whole month, he can't help but think even as his cheek nuzzles the sensitive skin on Seth's breastbone. A month lost feeling every other step was faltering, uneven footing in every day changing meadows. He could have learned the skin under his fingers, he could predict responses by touch and smell and the way Seth arcs his back when Ryan licks the aureole of his nipple.

"Ryan--" Seth groans in between pants and Ryan smiles against the skin, his left hand holding on Seth's hipbone and pressing thumb against bone and Seth arcs his back once again, a muffled cry caught in between pleasure and pain.

Ryan lifts his face from the expanse of muscle and skin golden brown, reaches up to stroke Seth's face. He grimaces, not in pain but in sorrow, knowing he doesn't have enough time to memorize the curve of the cheekbones, the edge of his jaw. He knows them, from afar, from years of sitting on Seth's right side and glancing at the profile and knowing how it looks but not how it feels under his lips, under his fingertips. He wants to know -- ghosts without faces -- the shade of the skin he touches when he can't see it anymore.

It's different, different than it ever was with a woman. Different than with Cecilia, who kissed him behind her house, who let him touched her in her father's garage. Lisa, who placed his hand on her breast and unhooked her bra herself. Theresa, who used to grin before licking the underside of his cock. It's so different, because this time there are no soft curves, nor yielding body.

Seth opens his eyes, looks straight at Ryan, blinking but holding his gaze, brown eyes light and soft and in love looking back at him and Ryan thinks it's okay, he can do different. Ryan's hand skims over Seth's sides, over skin and muscle, and Seth's body yields under him, and it's not so different even he can't breathe, and then draws in a breath. Seth likes it when Ryan touches him like this, and Ryan has fallen in love with him as much for his words, his touch, his mind as for this line right here, the ridge of bone under skin, the small scar on his temple where he'd cut himself the first night at the beach party. The perfections and the imperfections and the way Seth knows just how to fit against him.

Their hips find a rhythm, quick and slow at the same time, his cock nestled in the ridges between Seth's thighs, the cloth rough against his skin, but there's not enough time. They are in too much of a hurry, it's been too long, they won't last long, they won't-- The edge of Seth's sweatpants, low on his hip, against the skin on his stomach, the feeling of Seth's cock hidden beneath, hard against his skin, pushing and pushing. It's too much and not enough, and Ryan lowers his face, mouth open against Seth's neck, throat, and his hand touches Seth's lower back, press apt fingers and hears Seth groan and shift and whisper, beg, moan, more, more, Ryan, God, more, _please._

It's been too long, too long, he should have touched Seth like this months ago, that night when it was too much, when he broke and Seth picked up the pieces and put him back together, cracks from before and after, and all. He should have done this, hide his face in Seth's neck, smell Seth's hair and the tang of pre-come in the air and sweat and breath and air and the ocean and the sand and Ryan's right hand finds Seth's left one and twines their fingers and holds on tightly. Ryan's left hand digs into hipbone and soft skin and Seth's scream doesn't make it way out of his mouth but reverberates on Seth's throat and Ryan can feel it against his cheekbone and face and he presses harder, deeper, and Seth groans again, his hips bucking under Ryan's weight and with a silent inhale of breath, Ryan feels Seth come and groan and go slack.

Ryan's fingers keep their hold on Seth's hip, on his hand, face on Seth's neck, mouth wide open, lips on the jugular and he shifts and grimaces and closes his eyes and sees Seth's face in his mind's eye, his fingers touching Seth. His breathing comes in pants, in ragged breaths, and when Seth's right hand touches the small of his back, presses, he breaks and comes, his voice silent, his eyes closed.

Seth's hand spreads on the small of his back, under the t-shirt he never quite shed, rubbing slow circles and for a moment all he can see is white in his eyelids, white and bright and perfect and sun and sand and he's seeing all this even as his body tingles and his ears resound the ocean, deep and roaring, with edges of whispered silence. 

"I've got you," Ryan can hear muttered in his ear, against his hair, a kiss on his temple, a smile against his skin. "I've got you," Seth whispers again, and Ryan thinks something inside him breaks and lets go and succumbs and he can breathe, he can breathe, and he can sigh and kiss the hollow of Seth's throat.

They lie together in a tangle of arms and legs and whispers and kisses and touches, clothes still on, breathing ragged, until Seth nuzzles the side of Ryan's face, Ryan's temple, shifting underneath Ryan's weight.

"We gotta--"

And Ryan thinks he knows what Seth means, and he nods, but doesn't move, doesn't think he can. He sighs and burrows his face deeper and whimpers when Seth shifts again. But Seth brings their twined hands to kiss the back of Ryan's palm and nudges him to the side, slightly, and Ryan sighs but lets his body fall to the left side of the bed, Seth's side, while Seth wiggles from underneath and stands up.

Ryan rolls to his left side, only now feeling his sweats sticking to his body, and he grimaces because he should have thought about this before, as he woke up when Seth crawled into bed and then straddling Seth's hips when Seth finally fell asleep. He lifts his head from Seth's pillow as he hears Seth making his way back into the bedroom. The light is enough to see the outline of Seth's body, a silhouette he's becoming more familiar with, noticing the lack of sweatpants, the cloth in one hand.

Ryan smiles, falling on his back, and lifting his hips for Seth to pull down his sweats, and closing his eyes as Seth runs the washcloth over hipbones and inner thighs and light brown curls. He portrays the notion of a shower, but the laziness and heaviness on his bones is too much, too sweet, too perfect, to be given up so soon.

He closes his eyes, moving to his right when Seth nudges him with a hand on his hip. The bed dips as Seth falls on the bed, curling against him as though that was the only place he fit.

Ryan can feel his chest tightening once more but he brushes it away, leaning into the soft touch of Seth's weight on his left side, Seth's left hand finding his right one. A soft kiss, barest amount of pressure, dry lips against his shoulder, nothing but an uneven curl of breath between them. He smiles, shifting onto his side, his gaze flickering restlessly over Seth's nose, cheek, coming to rest on his mouth as he leans in to kiss again, lips barely parted, stubble grazing his jaw. His breathing hitches, stumbles, his fingers flex around the hand that holds his and he tilts his face to steal the breath Seth lets out.

He sighs, Seth shifting and settling, in the way they often sleep, Ryan on his back and Seth haphazardly laying against him, arm across his chest, hand on Ryan's hand, Ryan's arm around Seth's, resting on the small of Seth's back. They way they are, the way they've learned to sleep.

"I--" Ryan starts, though he doesn't know how to finish that sentence.

I found it, he wants to say, though he doesn't know what he was looking for in the first place.

"I love you," he says instead, because that's true and right and so long since he said it, since it didn't end in mid words that never found their way to his lips.

Seth smiles against Ryan's collarbone, kisses the sweat damp skin and nuzzles the hollow of his throat. Ryan was doing the same thing to Seth not even two minutes ago.

"I know," he whispers, mutters, breathes out. "I love you."

Ryan nods, sighs, can feel the pressure on his ribs, but it's different now. No ghosts without faces, merely state lines and closed eyelids, the distance from where he was and where he is now, and his left hand touches the side of Seth's face, distant places dissolving like smoke, skin and touch being enough.

*****

Ryan blinks, slowly, eyes heavy and limbs even more so. There's pressure underneath his eyebrows, in between the bone and the muscle. His head pounds somewhere in the back of his eyes, but he's gotten used to it. Gotten used to the low pull of his eyelids from the pain, the habit of pinching the bridge of his nose, the question of whether it would hurt less if he just took out his own eyes with a fork.

He takes in a deep breath, eyes still closed, lifting his right hand to pinch his nose and feeling weight on it, fingers around his own. He smiles, opening his eyes and looking down at the hand curled around his, holding onto his as much as he is holding onto Seth's. His chest feels tight, suddenly, his eyes hurting but for different reasons, noticing the way their bodies fit together. He sighs, left hand rubbing the skin underneath it, Seth's right shoulder as he rests half on top of Ryan. Hesitant, his hand moves to stroke the hair away from Seth's face, smoothing it around his ears.

Ryan wants to bring Seth's face to his, to see the brown eyes up close, to kiss the high cheekbones, the line of the jaw, the soft lips, hear his name whispered against his kiss. He wants to see Seth, how he wants to, because he can almost feel it in his bones that he won't be able to, not for much longer. His peripheral vision is all gone to shit now, nothing but eight or nine inches of sight before him, all blurred as if seen through a thick glass, as if seen without his glasses, back in the day when his only concern with his eyes was wearing the glasses that made him feel like an idiot.

He remembers, countless morning, lying on the futon in the pool house, one arm resting on his forehead, the other asleep under a body he had fount upon waking in the middle of the night. He remembers, tilting his head to the left (Seth had always slept on Ryan's left, as if only sitting on a different place than when they have controllers in hand) and watching the brown-black curls above the edge of the sheets, or the line of a shoulder and contour of a breastbone, when the sheets would pool on Seth's waist and hips. He remembers, lying there, soft smile on his lips -- very much like at the moment -- and watch, allowing himself the small mercy of letting it all show on his face, his eyes wide open, his face relaxed and slack. It was easy, to let it out of his body and his veins and his pores, if only for a few minutes every other week. It was safe and healthy, he had thought back then. Seth was asleep, Seth wouldn't know, Seth wouldn't open his eyes and look straight at Ryan--

Like he's doing right now. Ryan's breath catches in his throat, his thoughts coming into a halt, and for a moment he's back then, four years ago, in a pool house with Seth on the futon and his secrets needing to be kept. But this is not then, this is now, this is him not quite seeing the dark brown eyes, the thin mouth, the line of his jaw. This is now and he can look at Seth and see and let Seth see and not worry, even if his heart beats rapidly in his chest and his hands start sweating. The hand holding his -- or the one that holds Seth's -- squeezes slightly and Ryan can breath out, low and deep on his throat, and blink and Seth shifts his weight over Ryan's body so they can kiss.

Ryan closes his eyes as he kisses Seth, mouth opening, tugging at Seth's lower lip, tongue daring to touch the corner of his mouth. He breathes in, smelling the residues of come in the air, the tang of Seth's shampoo, and the lingering remains of ocean that feel more like memory than smell. And the voices in the back of Ryan's mind stop being noises and become faces and flesh and color and textures.

*****

His hands don't tremble, Ryan tells himself, even if they are holding tightly the mug in between both of them, head hanging slightly, warmth from the coffee inside touching his lips, his nose. Seth's moving around the kitchen, making scrambled eggs and checking on the toast. Ryan can still feel the hair on the back of his neck damp from his shower. Seth always showers first -- or has been, since he started sleeping in Ryan's bed -- and Ryan follows. Seth makes breakfast and by the time Ryan's walking into the kitchen, at least coffee is served and eggs are on their way.

He glances up, seeing the line of Seth's back, of his shoulders, and he looks back down at his mug. He shouldn't have-- But God, he couldn't stop himself. How the fuck did he get to this point? Oh, yeah, he put his fucking fist through the mirror, that's why.

He was fine. Before that, before... whatever it was he was thinking that afternoon. He was fine. He was dealing. He was handling it. He wasn't freaking out. He wasn't having a nervous breakdown. That's not him. He handles things. He can take anything and just keep fucking going. What the fuck is wrong with him?

Only, he couldn't. And then Seth had to be there and be sensitive when Ryan wanted to scream and punch something, anything really and then everything came pouring out and he said that-- 

_I don't know how to do this without you anymore!_

\-- which was never meant to be said and Seth... Seth surprised him again and --

_Live with you? Share a life with you?_

_I'm saying I love you_

\-- just stood there and said that and did that and then he was being kissed and it wasn't supposed to go like that. Seth was supposed to graduate and move on, get a job in another city and get married. Ryan was supposed to find a way to get on his with life, manage to find north and south without Seth's hand on his elbow, on his shoulder and Seth took that away from him and now Ryan has no idea how to do everything else.

That's why he did that. That's why he put space in between them. It's okay for Ryan to let Seth share his bed, hold his hand in the middle of the night, brush away the dreams of nothing but darkness and no footing underneath him. That's okay. Ryan can handle that. Because if Seth leaves

_and he will leave. he'll leave. Seth will leave. of course he will leave. he was going to be left behind once already. Seth was going to go to Providence and then he just didn't--_

then all Ryan would have lost was that, a compass, a center and a rock, not his whole life, not his whole fucking life--

"Eggs?"

Ryan blinks, Seth's silhouette before the stove, something oblong and blurry that he thinks it's a pan in one hand. He swallows, words still running through his head and his hand tightens around the mug. He nods, but doesn't say anything.

He closes his eyes shut, hangs his head, the coffee going cold in equally cold fingers.

He shouldn't have-- Last night, he shouldn't have. He was ready to let it all be nothing, let it all be forgotten. He wasn't going to do anything. He was ready to not do anything and then Seth crawled into bed last night and Ryan felt the bed dip, he's sure he felt the bed dip, but he must have been too deep under, because he didn't wake up. And then, then, he remembers sitting up and his heart beating on his throat and Seth lying there, just lying there, next to Ryan, his left hand still in Seth's right one. And he could see the edge of Seth's face, the line of his nose and down to his chin and jaw. It was perfect and it was just like Ryan remembered it and it fit and he needed to touch it, to touch him, even if only for one night, one night to know how Seth felt under him, how he smelled, how he sounded when he came. Just one night if Seth was going to move on and leave him behind.

He shouldn't have, but he couldn't stop himself. Even now, Ryan doesn't think he could have stopped himself.

A hand on his shoulder and Ryan looks up, eyes wide and bright and heart beating loudly on his chest and he doesn't want this, he can't have this. He can't. It wasn't meant for him. Seth was supposed to go to Providence with Summer back in 2007. Ryan was supposed to come here to Berkeley, alone. None of this was supposed to happen.

"Ryan?"

 _You don't love me, Seth._ Ryan blinks, looks at Seth, can almost feel the words on his tongue. _You don't want me. I'm going blind, what could you possibly--_

"What's wrong?"

He had never done that before, touch a man the way he had touched a woman. He had never-- But Ryan had never wanted another man like he had wanted Seth, had been wanting Seth so long, he can barely remember what it felt to not want him.

"You liked Summer," Ryan says with a breath and a shake of his head. "You were going to go to school with her. You were going to marry her."

"Ryan," Seth says, and sounds almost pained and sorrowful and Ryan wonders what he's sorrowful about. "Ryan, Summer was... my Jimmy Cooper."

Ryan frowns, not getting it, not seeing the connection between this and the Coopers. "What?"

"You're my Sandy Cohen."

Ryan shakes his head. "You like girls," he says before he can stop himself. And fuck, that sounds so fucking high school.

Seth chuckles, shaking his head once before placing the plate he has in his hands -- scrambled eggs, easy, just like Ryan likes them -- before him. Seth reaches forward, hand cupping Ryan's face, and he wants to pull away, put as much distance before them as he can, but he can't, fuck, and he hates himself even as he leans into the touch. "I like you."

"Seth--"

"I thought we had covered this? About a month ago?"

Only it had never been covered. They had... _said things_ and Ryan had thought the words were real then, but this is Seth. Seth, who loved Summer over a poem that wasn't even hers, and then Anna because she liked the same band. Seth, who left Anna for Summer and then left Summer for a boat. Seth, who wanted to be a bad boy for Alex and kept on chasing Summer. Seth, who lied to Summer even when he didn't want to. Seth, who didn't like Summer when she was smarter than him. Seth, who went to Brown and tried to talk the dean into letting him in because he wanted to be with Summer. Seth, who got engaged with Summer because he thought she was pregnant and whose heart broke when she finally said no.

Seth, who half the time doesn't know what he wants, doesn't stick by what he thinks he wants. Seth, who has Ryan's whole life in his hands, in between his fingers, and who will fucking leave--

"I don't know how to do this," Ryan whispers, finally, turning away, Seth's hand falling from his face.

"What?"

Ryan cringes at Seth's voice. Seth's voice

_Hey. Do you want to play?_

_It's good for ideas._

_So, I was thinking._

_I'm thinking about going to Berkeley._

used to match his eyes, eyes which always used to say too much. Now Ryan has to read Seth, hear the words instead of the change in the face, the pull of eyes or the move of the mouth, and use the voice as a language, because sight has failed him.

"This." Ryan says with a snort, with a shake of his head. "You... me. Us."

Seth's hand, again, on his cheek and this time Ryan sighs even as he leans into the touch.

"Ryan," Seth says, leaning forward, placing a kiss on his temple, on the corner of his eyes, and Ryan turns around, Seth meeting his lips. "We've been doing this," he says against Ryan's lips, breath leaving Seth and Ryan tasting it on his tongue, "for the last six years. I think we're pretty good at _this._ "

*****

Ryan looks back at him, eyes wide and perfect blue, two shades too clear to be the Newport ocean, one shade too dark to be the sky. He can see him, Seth knows, Ryan can see him, even if only for so long, and Seth will take each and every hour of now until Ryan can't, and make them count.

Seth has learned that it's not in the things Ryan says, but in what he doesn't. Ryan's comment about girls was a decoy. Good one, too, but not enough. Ryan still doesn't believe him, doesn't trust that he won't leave, a year and a half from now, when he graduates and gets offered a nice, comfy position in an established publisher. It's okay. Seth deserves it. He hasn't exactly been consistent in his decision for the past six years. And he has the rest of his life to prove it to Ryan.

When Seth was fifteen, he thought Ryan hung the moon and lit it. Ryan had been his world, and he had actually gotten used to it. If Ryan needs him now -- even if he thinks it makes him look weak -- then Seth will enjoy that and be careful with it. And it doesn't matter if Ryan's perfect or flawed, or both. All it matters is that Ryan lets Seth love him, and loves him back. He can't ask for more.

Seth smiles, his other hand touching his cheek, tilting his chin up slightly, rocking forward on his heels and presses his lips to Ryan's. Tip of his tongue touches Ryan's upper lip, carefully, from corner to corner, and pulls away after another breath. Ryan looks back at him, eyes blinking, slightly dazed, as dark as the ocean they are both familiar with. Seth nuzzles Ryan's cheek with his nose, the corner where Ryan's nose meets his face, left hand moving to the back of Ryan's neck, right one touching the pulse point under the jaw.

After a moment, Seth pulls away and moves to the kitchen, picks up the toast and places them on two plates.

"Perhaps we should get a dog."

His hands still, one piece of toast held in between almost lack fingers, the other holding onto the plate that's staying in his hold almost against gravity. He swallows, hearing what Ryan isn't saying, a guide dog. Seth closes his eyes briefly, something catching inside him, something else letting go. It feels like he sags against the edge of the counter, but he thinks it's just his imagination.

He stands up straight, letting the toast fall onto the plate and picks up the other piece. He has a smile on his face -- easy on his lips, on his body, on his self -- and turns around, nodding at Ryan, who's looking back at him, and his mind can't stop but wonder if Ryan can see him, can see his eyes, just how much he loves him, in his eyes.

Seth nods, making his way around the counter, to the small table. "I think that's a good idea."

Ryan nods as well, taking some toast from the plate as Seth places it next to his mug. "Good."

Seth takes his seat -- Ryan at one side of the table, Seth on his left, Seth always on his left -- and reaches for his own mug of coffee. "Tomorrow?" Seth asks. Saturday. No classes. A bit of sun for both of them.

"Sure."

And it might not be easy, but they've never done easy before, so Seth's kinda used to that.


	9. ix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but this fic was written way back when, before the "The night moves" episode (the earthquake), so for me, the Cohens were still living in Newport, with baby Sophie.

December passes in a blur of finals for Seth and getting used to Sam -- Seth had hoped for a more manly name for the dog, something like Draco, which Ryan had refused on the base that he was not going to have a dog named after a Harry Potter character. Choosing Sam was, even if Seth doesn't want to admit it, pretty easy. They went straight to Guide Dog, and found a lovely German Shepherd, which Seth said was the one thing he was not going to back down from, only six months old, because he needed to train with Ryan and get used to him. Lovely color, black on his back and gold and white on his stomach and paws.

Ryan and Sam graduate on December 17th, after three weeks of training, and Seth takes it upon himself to feed The Monster -- pet name from Seth, after Sam destroyed one pair Nike sneakers, even though Sam's supposed to be trained Not To Do That. 

They go to Newport for the holidays, of course, and Kirsten thinks Sam is perfect and Seth complains that she loves the dog more than her eldest son (Seth's birthday being on September while Ryan's is in March of the following year). Sandy gives Sam too many treats, and Sam noses Sandy’s hand while Ryan stands back, against the divider of the kitchen and the den, and watches them, small smile on his lips, and thinks he's almost ready. Almost.

New Year's Eve falls on a Thursday, and that night, as the grandfather clock in the living room -- they choose to stay home for the night, even if Ryan insists that at least Sandy and Kristen should go -- calls midnight, Ryan reaches forward, hand taking Seth's in his, pulling him forward, pulling him close. Ryan can't see Sandy and Kristen kissing on his peripheral vision -- already lower than fifteen, so he doesn't think about it. His hand cups Seth's face, Seth’s nose touching his own, and his chest is tight and he's running out of days, out of hours, he knows, so he takes what he can and kisses Seth with a grimace on his face and tears in his eyes he can't quite blink away this time.

They go back on Sunday night, January 3rd, 2010. Seth has classes at eight on Monday and Ryan still goes to the institute, too much to learn, too little time. By Friday, the headaches stop being a permanent fixture in his life, and he knows it's because his eyes are not making an effort anymore. They are giving up, and Ryan can almost feel them going down, losing the fight.

That night, he pushes Seth onto the bed, straddling him -- like he did the first time, so many days ago he can barely count them -- kissing a path from his collarbone down to his navel, feeling Seth whimper underneath him. His hands move over Seth's body with confidence, playing it as if he knows it by heart, by mind, as if his eyes are no longer needed. Soon, soon-- The words ends there, always, because soon is not now, so it should not be thought about.

And he's too desperate, there's not enough time, not enough time

_it won't happen over night_

even as he touches and kisses and licks and bites and nuzzles and Seth pleads under him, Ryan, Ryan, please, ohgod, _please._

And he wants, how he wants. He wants to push in and be there and find himself but he's not going to last, neither is Seth, and somewhere in between Seth rapidly loses the ability to verbalize. Instead, Seth hooks one leg around the back of Ryan’s thighs, dragging him closer. Ryan raises his head, kisses Seth hard, fingers tangling in his hair, hand digging into his hipbone. He moves and Seth moans, and his right hand finds Seth's left one and pulls it over Seth's head, and holds him there. They rock against one another, breathing coming faster, bursts of pleasure sparking across their skin and racing through their bones. And it's not enough, it won't be enough, he needs more, more time, more touch more sight more more _more--_

He can't do this, he can't do this, he can't stand words that are mostly noises, ghosts with just voices, he can't he can't--

"Ryan--"

And Seth's coming, slick and sweat, Ryan still moving against him, coming with a sob that Seth hushes, gentles. Seth gasps when Ryan tilts his hips and shocks an orgasm to the surface of Seth's skin, his mind, his lips, his eyes. He collapses, face pressed against Seth's neck, breathless and wordless. 

It feels like Ryan's breaking, again and again, even as his limbs go numb and slack and he nuzzles Seth's neck, Seth's cheek, right hand not letting go, left hand gripping Seth's shoulder tight enough to hurt. It won't ever stop, Ryan fears. This, creases of distant dark places, it might never stop, even when it stops. There are no keys to this, no equations, no answers, nothing he can do except wait and tell himself he'll fill the ghosts with images and colors and textures.

They spend Saturday morning in bed, in between kisses and touches and half words being spoken and a lot left unsaid.

Seth stands up sometime around one, Ryan turning around on the bed, propped on his left elbow, and watches him. He's running out of time, he knows, and maybe that's why he can almost feel the need, the rush, the hurry inside him, pouring through his veins as if mixed with his blood. He watches in nothing but dim shadows and the play of the light in his eyes, as Seth stands next to the bed, back to him, reaching for a t-shirt they threw in the general direction sometime this morning. And he watches the flex of muscles across the shoulder blades, the solid back, the narrow waist, the tan skin that used to be darker when they would spend most afternoons by the shore. The soft hair Ryan now has the unspoken permission to run his fingers through, the side of the face, the line of a jaw he has licked cleaned not even an hour ago.

Seth turns around, looks at him, smiles at him. He reaches down and kisses him soundly, breathlessly, and Ryan can't help it, his left hand moves to Seth's jaw and holds on tight, pulling him forward until he's falling on top of Ryan with a laugh. Seth laughs, but Ryan doesn't, only kisses him deeper, harsher, with tongue and teeth, and his hand pulls off the t-shirt for the second they are apart.

Seth wants to speak, Ryan can almost tell, but he silences him with a bite on his collarbone and Seth groans, arcs his back and reaches for Ryan's sides, for his back, presses and Ryan meets him moan for moan. They have a late lunch that day, and even then, Ryan can't stop kissing him in between bites, touching him in between breaths.

The next Tuesday, Seth has classes until after five, so Ryan does the grocery shopping after the institute, certain he'll make it home before Seth. Sam walks at Ryan's own pace down the aisles he knows by memory, eyes narrowing as he tries to read the label of the milk.

_to tie up loose ends  
to make amends_

He can't even see the large letters, he can't even tell the colors in the carton. His hand freezes and slowly, he tells himself to place it back on the rows of nothingness he can't even see and his throat closes up. There was a time when he could have read the small lettering, when he could have picked up a penny at twenty paces. There was a time--

Sam whimpers beside him and Ryan sighs, shaking his head. "Come on," he says, tugging at the leash, turning around, thinking the groceries can fuck themselves even as he walks away from the cart with a handful of things already in it. "Let's go home."

They take a cab back home, and Ryan's hand shake as he puts the key in the lock. He pulls the body strap off Sam and lets him run to the corner, to do doggy things, closing the door with the back of his shoes and leaning against it, head tilted back, breathing ragged and harsh and horribly painful in his chest and fuck fuck _fuck--_

_some people with retinal degeneration may become blind_

This is it, he knows. This is it. He was running out of days, and right now he's running out of hours, out of fucking minutes. And he can't breathe, fuck, he can't breath and the last time he felt like this, this out of his skin, he put his hand through the mirror and Seth threatened to get them into therapy and--

_fuck_

_I started to fall  
and the silence deafened_

Ryan's lying down on the couch, Sam resting his head on his shins, nudging him with his nose and not even getting a word from Ryan, by the time Seth arrives. Seth doesn't say anything and if he wasn't so fucking understanding, then Ryan would have an excuse for throwing plates against the furthest wall--

and the sound would make a nice companion, wouldn't it, considering you can't even watch them crash--

"Do you want Thai?"

Ryan makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat that Seth must have taken as agreement, because the next thing he hears is Seth picking up the phone. And he can hear, he can hear everything going around him but it's not enough. He wants sight along with it but he can't have it, so he might as well-- They have dinner in terse silence, Seth making comments about his classes yet not asking about Ryan's, nor about the lack of milk or anything regarding groceries.

That night, Ryan pushes in with very little preparation and Seth hisses under him. Ryan kisses his apologies in Seth's skin and before long, Seth's moaning under him, wanting more, demanding more, and Ryan complies and crashes in a blur of white and color against his eyelids, the only way he can see color anymore.

_is there a heaven a hell_  
and will I come back  
who can tell 

On Wednesday, Ryan can see the blueprints of the apartment in his mind, making his way into the bathroom when Seth leaves to make breakfast. He showers easy and can almost feel his muscles relaxing, only tensing once again when he opens his drawers and feels the Braille tags sewn onto the fabric of almost every piece of cloth he owns. He grits his teeth so hard, he thinks he chips a tooth.

He doesn't eat, only pushes the food around in his plate. Seth doesn't say anything, and Ryan can feel his blood boiling in his veins, wanting release, wanting --

Seth touches his cheek, a familiar gesture now, a signal for a kiss, and the very touch makes Ryan want to do something, hurt something, someone; himself. Seth's touch tilts his chin and places a soft kiss on Ryan's tense lips. Seth doesn't say anything -- again, again -- and presses another kiss, pulling away, the back of curled fingers caressing his jaw.

"Lunch?"

Lunch. Lunch. They are having lunch together, here this time, because Ryan's obviously not in the mood for anything but sheer madness. He doesn't say anything, only sits and hears and recognizes the sound of Seth opening the front door, closing it behind him. Tiredly, Ryan swats the plate away with his arm, hearing it crash on the floor with a clunk sound. Sam whimpers on his right, nudging Ryan's knee with his nose, but he moves his leg away. Get the fuck out.

_the places I've been_  
the people I've seen  
plans that I made  
start to fade 

He's not sure what he does after that. He must have done something, stand by the window, try to look out and see nothing but black and gray and a few lines of white. He thinks he remembers the shades of orange Newport sky would turn to, tinged in pink and yellow on the horizon, where the sky met the ocean, and on the house, on the grass, on the pool.

His face is twisted in a grimace as he lets himself fall and slide down the wall to the floor. Sam whimpers again and lies against his left leg, a comforting weight against his muscle and bone. He blinks and thinks of the map of Tahiti, of his fingers touching the state lines Seth and him were supposed to cross and belong into, inside and outside, and everything Seth was going to show him, teach him. How they kept on pushing it back and back, thinking they had time, they had time, _they had time--_

And he sits on the cold ground, head titled back, hands on his lap, a cold nose against the back of his palm. He blinks and remembers his peripheral vision. He can almost see the way he used to glance at Seth from the corner of his eyes, Seth grinning or glaring or talking or smiling or sleeping. And it was that, it was him, it was them, and it's gone now; nothing but a memory, nothing but sheer vapor in a warm room, nothing but nothing but.

Ryan blinks and lifts his head and knows the set of the TV and console is to his right, the center table somewhere before him and slightly to his right. The kitchen further down, with the broken plates still on the floor, the hallway to his left, the door next to the counter. He can hear cars outside, someone shouting, something happening, feet down the hallway, music somewhere above him, a honk in the park. Something and everything and he blinks and looks around his apartment and he should see it, see something, see anything. And yet. It's nothing but black and grey and black and this time his head aches no more, his eyes are no longer heavy, and nothing penetrates the silence.

Sometime later -- because the minutes tick by even if Ryan doesn't want them to, hopes they stop -- he can hear the door being unlocked and being pushed open and a gasp and Ryan thinks about laughing but fears it might hold a manic edge to it.

"Ryan, God. What happened? Did you hurt yourself? Are you okay? Are you--?"

Seth's hand flutter over his face and shoulders and chest and arms and hands and Ryan catches them blindly -- ha! -- and holds them tightly in fingers that shake. Ryan's face is nothing but a scowl and he hopes the tears he feels are on the inside, not the outside.

"I'm--"

The word chokes on his throat, heavy and spiteful and disgusting, tasting of blood and death. It's been over a year in the making since his first diagnose, back in early January of 2009. A year and four months since his appointment with the optometrist. Under five years since he started using glasses. Five years and two months since his head started to hurt because he was straining his eyes. Almost twenty two years since he was born and sentenced to this, _this._

"Ryan, what--?"

His hold on Seth's wrists and hands tighten and Seth gasps at the pressure, Sam nudging his hip with his head. 

There are no words. There are no words to say this. He blinks, lifts his head in the general direction of Seth -- and Ryan can imagine him squatting before him, worried look on his eyes, mouth tight and eyes narrowed a bit. He knows because this is one of the hundred and million looks of Seth he was able to memorize. That's the way Seth looks, pissed off and helpless; that's the way Seth looks, worried and heart beating against the back of his throat.

"I'm... I can't..." His mouth opens and closes, and the words are only breathed out. "I _can't--_ "

The word doesn't make its way up his throat, out of his lips, because then Seth's mouth is on his, angry and hard and a little mean, like he's yelling at the world at large in a new way, since all the old ones don't really work anymore. Ryan feels his fingers loosen, curl up helplessly, hit Seth's chest, Seth's shoulders and arms and break and hit once again because he can't do this, he can't do this, he thought he could but fuck he can't, _he can't_ , he can't _Seth don't make me do this alone please please._

Ryan kisses back the only way he knows how, because he doesn't know what else to do to make the desperate, worried noises in the back of Seth's throat go away. He wants to say, I'm fine, it's okay, but it's not true and Seth has known him for so long, too long, and he's figured Ryan out in ways no one else ever bothered even trying, and he'll figure this out. Seth knows now, even though Ryan never got around to saying it, but Seth knows and Ryan's grateful for that. 

Instead, he says it all in the way that he lets Seth lick his mouth open, the way he kisses back, all teeth and lips. He flicks his tongue over Seth's teeth and then bites down with his own, scraping against Seth's lower lip, soft and flesh-sweet. He says everything he can't say -- _sorry I'm so sorry I didn't want this to happen I can't fix it I can't fix it I want you to fix it but it can't be fixed. I'm broken Seth what could you possibly want with me when I'm this broken._ Ryan never knew he could kiss in English, kiss in apologies, but apparently he can because Seth holds Ryan's hands against his chest, pulls him closer and they tangle down on the floor, Sam yelping as they fall on his tail, moving away, away from them. They tangle down and Seth catches him, pulling him closer, closer, in a protective, needy way.

Ryan puts his hands on Seth's face and kisses his upper lip, his lower lip, and the corners of his mouth, wanting to say things in between but unable to do so, but Seth understands, he thinks, because then it's Seth who says the words in hot, humid breaths, "It's okay, Ryan. It's okay. We'll make it okay, we'll make it okay."

*****

But it's not okay, of course it's not okay. Seth knows this. He knows this the same way he knows his middle name is Ezekiel and his parents have to have given him that name because they really wanted a girl and they got him. It will never be okay. And he thinks, well, they can handle that. It will never be okay, it will never be the same. Ryan will keep on learning things, small things, as simple as how to put the toothpaste on his brush without half of it falling onto the sink. And Seth will keep on learning, how to guide Ryan

_Just your hand on my elbow, Seth. Just that. Like you've always done it. Just like that._

without ordering him around.

They stand up, slowly, carefully, sometime after that. Seth doesn't care about the time, it's not important, it's not worth it. They have time. They have plenty of time. They have the rest of their lives, that's what they have.

Ryan knows his way around the apartment, he knows it better than Seth does. He can do it without his cane, without Sam, but that was when he wasn't freaking out, which, of course, it's not now. And he's babbling, because when something--

Seth takes in a deep breath, hand on Ryan's left elbow, and steers him right around the couch, to the hallway and down to the bedroom.

It's the middle of the afternoon, the sun still high outside, and Seth can feel the heavy set of hunger in the mouth of his stomach, and he has two classes this afternoon but none of that matter. Nothing matters, when Ryan keeps on blinking, eyes narrowing, like he wants to see but knows he can‘t, when his right hand gropes for Seth's arm, chest, neck, blindly and it's only then that Ryan holds on tightly.

There's no need to push down the covers, only let Ryan reach out and touch the edge of the bed with his hand before sitting down, lying down. Seth sighs, his chest tight and it won't ever let go from now on, he thinks, it won't let go because it's here, it's now, what they had feared--

Ryan scoots on the bed, to the left side, and Seth lies down on the right one, as usual, like always, and then Ryan's reaching out for his hand, searching with his palms and his fingers. Ryan's touching until he has filled the sensory depravation with touch, and finally, Ryan sighs and sags on the bed. Seth holds him tight, pulls him to his chest, close. Seth closes his eyes, hearing everything around him and nothing at all, but opens them a second later, breathing harsh and forcing his heartbeat to slow down.

Seth doesn't know when, but Ryan falls asleep against his side, cradled carefully, Seth's arm around his shoulders, face hidden in the hollow of his neck. Seth's left hand, shaking even as it lies on the small of Ryan's back, moves to the nape of Ryan's neck, to push back the hair falling over Ryan's eyes.

"I love you," Seth whispers into the afternoon shinning brightly behind the thick dark curtains, his face troubled, something inside him broken and lost. "God, Ryan, I love you."

And he wants to scream and yell and throw things against the wall and and and-- But it doesn't matter, nothing matters. He'll have this... he'll. It's. It doesn't matter.

He takes in a deep breath that somehow ends in a sob, his right hand -- the one on Ryan's shoulder, keeping him close -- stays still and steady, even as he bites down on his left one, bites down with everything he has, until the pain on his skin catches his attention and he's not dying from the inside out.

He breathes, slowly and regularly, a conscious effort, and sometime in the next minute -- eyes on Ryan's forehead, the line of his nose, the high of his cheekbone, the light not quite catching on his sandy hair -- he falls asleep as well.

He wakes up sometime after the sun has set, the dim light from the streetlight across the street and through the curtains casting lines and curves and shadows in the rooms.

Ryan shifts in his arms and Seth tightens his touch on Ryan for a second, a breath, and then settles and sighs and closes his eyes. His limbs are lazy with the heaviness that comes from sleeping too much, but it's brings a nice buzz with it, and he can almost -- almost, almost but not quite -- forget what forced them to take refuge on the bed.

He keeps going over things, over simple things like buying more labels and having to go do the groceries because yesterday was Ryan's turn but he must have forgotten -- or decided not to -- and that he has a paper due next week that he should--

"I think..."

Seth's breath catches in his throat, the words muttered against his collarbone making his skin tingle and his stomach plummet somewhere deep and scary at the same time. He hadn't even noticed Ryan was awake.

"I think," Ryan starts once again, Seth's hand spread wide on his lower back, breath warming his throat when it leaves Ryan's lips, "I think I need therapy."

" _We,_ " Seth says after another breath, turning around to place a small kiss on the top of Ryan's head, hiding his face in Ryan's hair and breathing in. He doesn't know how, but Ryan smells of his shampoo and cotton and vanilla. " _We_ need therapy."

Ryan sighs, placing a kiss on the hollow of Seth's throat, and doesn't say a word. Seth doesn't say a word. They don't say a word, the night crawling around them, slowly, easy, undeniably.

*****

"Are you sure about this?"

Ryan smiles at Seth, confidence around him even though inside it's nothing but ice not quite melting in a fire; he has no idea where it's coming from. It could very well be anger, he's not sure. He nods, still, because this is Seth and it's one thing to tell himself he's fine, he's dealing it with even when he breaks down in the middle of the living room -- after breaking down in the bathroom -- but it's another thing entirely to disrupt his fucking life every single day. 

He has classes, Ryan, he tells himself, he has classes and he has papers and you know for a fact that he stays up until well past one to finish books because he spends a few hours every other day learning how to cope with your blind ass, that's why.

Ryan nods once again, knowing how to smile and make it look good, look real. He's got experience in this. He can't lie worth shit, sure, but he can lie without saying a word. _That,_ he's good at.

Still, Ryan reaches forward, hand finding Seth's shoulder as if he can see it in his mind's eye even here, sitting in the waiting room of a psychologist's office, Seth's hand on the inside of his elbow, bringing north and south to Ryan when all he has is bottomless nothingness.

"Okay. Hmm. Two hours, right?"

Ryan presses his lips into a line, hearing Dr. Jackson -- Kirsten's suggestion, the best psychiatrist in the area, dealing with post traumatic disorder and anything traumatic, really -- on the other end of the line, I think two hours, to start with, three days a week? We'll see from then.

"Yeah, two hours," he says, his teeth not quite gritting, his throat not really rough.

"Good. Hmm. Just wait for me here, okay, I'll--"

" _Seth_ ," Ryan says, his tone low and careful and controlled and that shuts Seth up in a second. Ryan smirks. He might have lost his sight -- _fuck_ \-- but he hasn't lost his touch. The dangerous, either you shut the fuck up or I'm really gonna throw you out voice always works.

"Oh. Right. Okay. Going now."

There's a pause, barely a hesitation, but Ryan understands. They've never-- They aren't-- He's not sure what they are, exactly, because they would always turn to each other for comfort, because Seth had the tendency to crawl into his bed at least once a week, twice if they happened to watch a horror movie, ever since they were fifteen. It's not that much different now, not really.

And yet, a second later Seth brushes his lips against Ryan's, barely the pressure of a kiss, slowly and yet quick, saying more with that touch than Seth can with a million words. "Two hours," Seth whispers as he pulls apart, close enough that Ryan can feel Seth's breath against his nose.

Ryan nods. "Two hours."

This time, Ryan can hear Seth pulling back -- the change of pressure, the shift in the cushion; and if blindness has taught Ryan anything, is that one can learn to hear smarter -- before there's a squeeze on his elbow, the inside of his arm, and then the hand falling away. 

"Okay."

Ryan smiles. Seth frets, is what he does, and somewhere in the back of Ryan's mind, it makes him feel all warm and nice and weird things he hasn't felt quite this intensely before.

"I'll be back in two hours."

Ryan chuckles, and the only reason he doesn't physically push Seth away is because Seth just might take hold of his arm and not let go. And Ryan doesn't think he could push him away a second time. "Okay."

There's another pause, and Ryan can see Seth -- see him like he used to, with light in the background and everything in three dimensions, see him like he can't see him anymore -- standing there, before him, shins not quite touching Ryan's knees, mouth pressed so tight, the lips hidden in Seth's mouth, probably running his tongue over them. Yeah, he can see it, and Ryan can't help but smile, because he might not see, but he won't ever forget.

"Take care, okay?"

Ryan smiles, nods, his right hand touching the tip of his cane as it rests on his thighs. I'm fine, he wants to say, but wonders about the words. He nods once again instead.

He breathes in even as he hears Seth's footsteps to the main door (seven) and then hears the door opening (glass door, Seth had said, glass door with wooden frames, very cool, actually, mom would like them) and then closing, slowly, and he can let out the breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding.

"Ryan Atwood?"

Ryan nods, taking his cane and unfolding it with a flick of his wrist. He stands up, taking in a deep breath, and asks, "Could you tell me--?"

"To your left, about four paces, then another left, about ten and the door on your left. We have a thing for lefts."

Ryan swallows, surprised at the detailed description. People don't do that, unless they are used to dealing with someone-- The word doesn't come to his lips, stays locked somewhere in his throat, and that's only one of the many reasons he's here. He nods. Seth did tell him about the four paces down from the waiting area to a hallway that Seth was certain would lead to the office. "Thanks."

It's easy to find the door the secretary, Patricia Kasas, pointed out, and he pauses for a second, taking a deep breath, wondering if he could just leave, if he could-- He closes his eyes shut before letting out his breath and knocking on the door.

"Come on in," someone says from the inside. Dr. Jonathan Jackson, probably owner of seven PhDs, a dozen awards and at least a Nobel Prize. He doesn't think Kristen would qualify him as the best otherwise.

He pushes the door open, taking two steps inside before he hears the voice, once again.

"Ryan Atwood, I assume."

Ryan pauses, nodding as he does so. "Yes, I'm--"

Two hands take Ryan's right one, the one he was starting to offer, in them, shaking it. Ryan can smell the soft cologne on the man, standing right before him. "A pleasure to meet you, Ryan. I'm Jonathan Jackson, my friends call me JJ."

"Oh," Ryan says, his voice deep, not knowing what else to say.

"The couches are to your right, no more than four paces. There's one along the wall, ending on the corner table, then another against the following wall, a small center table in between, so watch your knees. On the other side of the room from where you're standing, there are wide windows. I like to let the sun in, I don't know why, I'm from Chicago so maybe it's the lack of sun over there, you know? My desk, which is to say is full of papers at the moment, in on your left, facing us right now. There are book shelves flanking my desk and behind it. I have a thing for books."

Okay, yeah. So maybe Kirsten did know what she was talking about. Ryan wonders if it'll be polite to ask him if he received a Nobel Prize of some kind, or how many PhDs he has in his name. "Thank you."

"No problem. I've deal with patients with low visual fields, don't worry." He shakes Ryan's hand one more time before squeezing and then letting it drop.

Ryan finds the first couch very easy, careful with his knees. He sits down, placing the cane on his right.

"Kirsten told me a little bit about you."

A little bit. A little bit is never _a little bit_ with Kirsten.

"Don't worry, nothing personal. Just the reason you were seeking therapy, where you are from, your parents' name, that sort of thing."

Did she tell you they adopted me? Did she tell you they didn't sign up for this? Did she tell you this is all Frank's fault? Dawn never mentioned anyone having this from her side of the family. It has to be Frank's fault. It has to-- Ryan swallows, feeling his neck tight, his shoulders pulled back, his right hand closed in a fist. He wants to relax, he really does, but he wonders if he'll be able to. He wonders if it was a good idea to come here. He wonders if he'll manage to get a word out of his mouth.

He hears Jonathan walking toward him, closer, probably around the center table. The couch on his right groans under Jonathan's weight. A pause, neither of them speak, and Ryan can feel everything inside him under a tight lid.

"Okay. Ryan, tell me about yourself."

He wants to snort, he really does, but thinks that coming with that attitude is probably counterproductive.

"I'm 22," he says with a shrug, trying to find it in himself something to say, something, anything. This was a bad idea. This was a horrible bad idea. He doesn't like talking. That's why he's always understood Seth, always fit with him, because Seth can carry a conversation all by his fucking self--

"You're living in Berkeley, right?"

Ryan swallows. I used to go there. I used to-- "Yeah. Berkeley."

"You go there?"

He swallows again, his hands digging into his thighs, lowering his head. He narrows his eyes, puts so much effort, so much strain in his eyes, the headache starts to pound all the way to the base of his neck, and yet all he sees is black. "Until last July, yeah."

"What happened?"

He looks up, in the general direction of Jonathan. "I thought Kirsten--"

"I'd rather you'd tell me."

Jonathan's voice is low and understanding, like Ryan could pick up whatever is on the center table and throw it across the room and the man would stay unperturbed. "I have retinitis pigmentosa."

"When did you find out?"

His throat doesn't work, his neck burns with anger and frustration and he's nothing but a handicapped, he's nothing but-- "Last January."

*****

Seth has classes. That's what he does. He goes to classes. That's him. Classes and books to read and papers to give in and friends to study with. That's his life. Berkeley. That's his life.

If he shoves his books into his bag the minute the bell rings and the professor sighs and waves toward the door, he thinks nothing of it. If his friends don't ask why he doesn't pick up Ryan anymore, he doesn't wonder. If sometimes he has lunch with his English friends in the cafeteria, they don't ask. If Seth glances down at what used to be his napkin and finds nothing but tiny squares of paper, he only swallows.

If Ryan keeps quiet and does things slowly and meticulously and stops kissing him and pulling him forward, hands over Seth's skin, on his sides and on his back, Seth doesn't miss the touch.

*****

"Do you consider Berkeley your home?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I-- I don't know what you want me to answer."

"The truth. When I say home, what do you think?"

"Newport."

*****

Seth keeps quiet, mostly. Goes home the minute his classes are done. Jennifer invites him to a party, he refuses. She says he can bring Ryan, Seth clamps up. 

They don't ask why he missed afternoon classes last Wednesday. Or why he didn't go at all last Thursday. It's been two weeks, and they haven't asked. Seth hasn't offered information either.

They don't ask about Ryan. They don't even mention his name, anymore. They haven't asked about Ryan since the beginning of the school year. 

Seth hasn't told them Ryan's not going this year.

*****

"Have you told your parents, about this?"

"I told them. I went to Newport to tell them, April, last year. I-- I didn't want to tell them at first, but I had to."

"You told the Cohens?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think of them as your parents?"

"..."

"It's a reasonable question."

"They raised me. They are my legal guardians. Were. They were--"

"The Atwoods, what do you--?"

"They are the Atwoods. Frank and Dawn. That's all."

"Okay."

*****

Lara fights with Luigi. A huge fight. Horrible fight. Seth has no idea what it was about, but Emily listens to Lara, even as she's wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. "He's an idiot. Men. They are idiots. I hope he dies."

"Here, here," Emily says with a grin.

"Fuck. At times... fuck! At times I wonder if we should break up, you know?"

Lara glances at him in that moment, a quick glance, a sad glance. "Sorry."

Seth narrows his eyes, but lowers them to the book on his hands. He doesn't even know what he's reading. He thinks he knows what Lara meant by that glance, by that sorry. He would, at least, if he gave it another minute of his attention. But he doesn't. He has to do the groceries and put the Braille tags on everything he buys.

His fingers tighten on the edges of the book and whatever it is he reads, he doesn't remember.

*****

"How long have you known Seth?"

"I met him on my second day at the Cohens."

"Okay. That was--?"

"August 9th, 2003. I walked out of the pool house, to the kitchen, and Seth was there."

"In the kitchen?"

"In the den. He was sitting in front of the TV, controller in hand. He was playing Dynasty Warriors IV."

"What did he say to you?"

"Hey."

"Excuse me?"

"Hey. He said _hey_."

"What did you say to that?"

"Hey."

"Hmm. You said hey back?"

"Yeah."

"Then?"

"Seth said, do you want to play?"

"And you?"

"I shrugged. I sat down and played with him."

"Oh. Did you say anything else?"

"No. Nothing. He beat me three times in a row. It took me two weeks to finally beat him in his own game. Now, we're kinda even. Well, we were."

*****

They sit at breakfast, quietly. Very quietly. The sound of the coffee dripping and the next door neighbor's -- Sandra's -- radio, loud even through the wall. She's probably on the treadmill, early riser and all that.

Seth picks up his bagel, looking at it through dark brown eyes. Bagel. His dad. Newport. The pool house. The den. Sitting there. Sitting there, Ryan on his right, Ryan always on his right, looking back at him. looking back at him with blue eyes that can see--

He places the bagel on the table, glances at Ryan. Ryan, who touches the edge of the table before moving his hands to the center, looking for the mug and finding it after a moment. Ryan, facing his life through touch and taste and sound and smell. Ryan--

He closes his eyes for a second and wonders how he can breathe when it feels like he's dying.

*****

"I don't want to talk today."

"Okay."

"Really. I don't want to talk."

"Okay."

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I, Ryan. If you don't want to talk, you don't have to?"

"Hmm. You sure?"

"Yeah."

"You're not gonna trick me?"

"Into talking? I don't think I could manage that. You're not the kind of guy who talks when he doesn't want to."

"No, I'm not."

"Okay then. You can just sit there, do... something. And I'll go to my desk, sit and go over some files. What do you think?"

"Oh. Okay."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Did I-- Did I tell you that Seth and I--?"

"Yeah?"

"Hmm. We're not brothers. Not by blood."

"I know that, Ryan. You're adopted."

"Yeah. And we were fifteen when the Cohens became my guardians, so. Hmm."

"Yeah?"

"We-- We're dating. Kinda. It's not incestuous. It's not--"

"No, it's not incestuous at all. You spent a lot of time together when you were in high school, right?"

"Yeah, we did."

"And then you both moved to Berkeley."

"Seth was going to go to Brown, but he didn't get in. But he got accepted in RISD. It's a very fancy school of art."

"I've heard about it."

"Yeah, he was going to go. Seth. He was going to go there. In Providence. I was going to go to Berkeley. I wanted to stay in California."

"Close to the Cohens. I understand."

"Yeah. But Seth-- After... before the summer of 2007, Seth said he wanted to go to Berkeley with me. He said. He said he wanted to go with me."

"Oh. Well. You've been living together four years, right? It must have been difficult for him to think about moving away. From you."

"Yeah. I never... I never really asked him."

"I can see that."

"I... We're. We're dating."

"That's good."

"Yeah, I-- I think it is."

*****

By the end of January, Ryan's barely speaking to him. If Ryan's depressed, he's not saying. And Seth isn't asking. Seth thinks the psychologist is working, has to be working, or Ryan would have put his hand through the new bathroom mirror.

But Ryan only leaves the apartment to go to the Institute, and that's only by cab. Sam's starting to look bored out of his mind. Seth has started to take him out to the park across the street from their apartment building to walk. Three days ago, Sam peed on the washer. Seth had to clean it.

Something's wrong, Seth knows. Something's wrong and he has no idea what he can do to make it right.

*****

"So, how does this work, doc?"

"Seth, Call me JJ."

"Oh. JJ. Sounds weird."

"Jonathan Jackson. I don't like John, and Jack Jackson just doesn't sound..."

"Good? Normal? Tell me about it. Seth Ezekiel. I think my mom wanted a girl."

"..."

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No. Hmm. No."

"You are! You're laughing at me!"

"You're very much like Ryan painted you."

"Ryan doesn't paint."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. Ryan's... he's fine?"

"I can't talk about my sessions with him."

"I thought we were here to talk about him?"

"No, we're here to talk about how you're coping with Ryan's blindness."

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine, Seth. You don't even sound fine. Your voice just hardened."

"I'm fine, it's Ryan the one that--"

"That's blind, yes, but it's also affecting you. You didn't sign up for this, did you, when you--?"

"Are you asking me if I'm going to leave him? Is that what this is? Do you actually think--!"

"I don't think anything, Seth. I was just asking--"

"I love him!"

"I know."

"..."

"It's okay."

"I love him."

"That's good."

*****

It's too much. It has been too much for too long, and it all ends on February 4th, 2010. It falls on a Thursday, and they have a test on Friday for "Mayor Figures on American Literature". It's exactly three weeks and one day since Seth came home to find Ryan sitting in the living room -- the den, to them, the den because it holds a couch and the big TV and the Playstation -- back against the wall, Sam whimpering against his thigh, completely blind.

It's been too long and not long enough. It'll never be long enough. Seth will look back on that day -- January 13th, January 13th, January 13th, january13thjanuary13thjanuary13th -- and know not enough days have passed since then. Never long enough. Never--

"Fuck. Just kill me now, will you?"

Seth looks up from the book opened before him on the table. Jennifer -- her apartment, a Newpsie for a mother, very old money, goes to Berkeley and not Yale as some kind of weird rebellion thing -- shakes her head and closes her book with a loud sound.

"Fuck," she says again, "I'm tired of this. Really. I give you. I'm not--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Lara snorts, leaning back, stretching her arms over her head and hearing more than one vertebrae pop. "You're gonna start bitching about how you don't know anything about this subject and then you're going to ace it and make us look like a bunch of idiots."

Emily chuckles. "Sorry, babe," she says to Jennifer. "But you always do that." A shrug of slim shoulders, dark brown, almost black hair, falling onto her shoulders. In that moment, she reminds him of Summer.

Seth swallows thickly, his throat suddenly tight. He stands up. "Hmm. Can I--?" He asks, jerking his head toward the kitchen, specifically the fridge.

She nods, waving her hand in the general direction of it. "Sure. Knock yourself out."

He makes his way to the fridge, opening it and peering inside. They used to study in his apartment. It was always stocked. Ryan was a bit religious about going to the groceries, Seth thinks because he actually used to do the groceries before coming to live with them. The closest Seth ever got to doing them was the summer his mom was in rehab, and even then, it was always Ryan. Ryan hasn't gone to get the groceries since that Wednesday. Seth has realized he kinda sucks at it. He bought three boxes of Captain Crunch and only one gallon of milk and no vegetables, not like they are big on vegetables, but still. Ryan used to buy vegetables.

His hand shakes as he takes out a can of Coke. He opens it with one hand, leaning against the wall, looking out the window over his shoulder. He frowns, seeing nothing but thick trees and green expanses. The building looks out into a park. Very nice park, too. Very high class. About twenty minutes from campus, but Jen has a car, and Lara and Emily came with Seth, and he'll drop them off at campus before going home. 

The sun is setting, early, not even six and he told Ryan this morning that he might be home late, staying at Jen's to study. Ryan only half grunted something.

Ryan barely talks to him anymore. They share a bed, of course, and he holds Ryan's hand in his at night, but Ryan doesn't hold his back. Ryan doesn't kiss him. Ryan--

He glances out the window, his lips pressed tight into a line before pulling them into his mouth, licking them with the tip of his tongue. The sun is setting, light blue letting orange take over before midnight blue conquers.

Everything is tinged in orange. The edge of the building, the thick trees, the grass, the cars, the people, the city. Orange sky, like the Newport sunset. Newport, sunset, the pier, the ocean, the pool, the pool house. Ryan. Ryan. _Ryan._

And he's miles from the place where he first met Ryan. Ryan, standing with his hand on the doorknob. Ryan, hair tussled from sleep, cheeks rosy, head tilted to the side, eyes wide and looking at him -- looking at him, right at him, not through him, not like they always do, they always did -- and Seth sitting there, on the cold ground, and all he can think of is _Hey._

His face contorts into a grimace and his hand moves to his mouth, teeth digging into soft flesh and it's not enough, it's not fucking enough--

He moves quickly, places the Coke on the table by Emily's elbow and rushes to the bathroom, with enough mind left inside him to close the door behind him. He holds himself by his hands on the sink, breathing ragged through his mouth, his chest so tight, so fucking tight--

And the worry starts to hurt and all he can do is close his eyes and think of summer, think of Newport and Ryan sitting next to him, looking at him, memorizing him so he doesn't forget, so when the years have gone by and it's been a decade since Ryan last saw him, he still won't forget.

Ryan, beautiful Ryan, and even with his eyes closed, Seth can see him, almost like a picture only not, brighter, brighter and perfect. He feels dizzy, light and free, falling gently into his very memory. Ryan, walking into the kitchen, eyes not quite open, hands groping for a cup of coffee and Seth for once having woken up first and handing it to him. Ryan lying down on the futon, on his side, Seth crawling into the bed like it's the most natural thing and Ryan accepting it like such. Ryan sitting to his right, sharing a game and so much more. Ryan under him, eyes wide and yet unseeing, arching under his touch, moaning his name, breathing his sweat.

Seth shakes his head, walking out of the memory and into where he is, standing in a bathroom, anger not quite quelling inside. There's so much he doesn't understand, yeah, but this is too much. He wants to touch Ryan and know the touch will be welcomed, he wants--

A knock on the door, Jen's voice, saying something and Emily's voice above it and Lara's on the background--

The sound of Ryan's voice, Ryan's laughter, his small smile, his shy smile, his compass to guide him home.

Questions, questions, answers, calling, words, another knock--

A touch on his shoulder, turning him around, facing Ryan and smiling at him and a cup of coffee being shoved into his hands. "There, drink that. Shower."

Someone calling him, again, and again--

" _Seth!_ "

The word low, a warning, but Seth keeps on pushing, keeps on pushing because this is what he does, always has done, telling Ryan that he doesn't have to prove that he's strong, that they will understand, they know that he's hurting for Marissa, they know. "We know."

Ryan snorting, turning around, turning away.

Ryan, falling onto the mat, blood on his brow, on his lips, bleeding. Ryan bleeding, bare knuckles against the sandbag. Ryan bleeding, always bleeding, either on the outside or on the inside and he's going to run out of blood soon and then how is Seth going to be able to breathe if Ryan is not longer--

_"You're the only thing that makes sense."_

Seth saying that with a shrug of his shoulders before walking into the bedroom he chose in their new apartment in Berkeley and letting the box fall from his hands onto the floor of the empty room.

Ryan, sitting perfectly on the ground, back against the couch, head leaning back, tired, a pinched look on the corner of his eyes. Ryan is, was... Ryan had been... Ryan had seen him--

_don't ignore the present tense_

A snort from him and he's breaking down because it's been too much too high, too low, too quickly, too soon, too everything and he has nothing left inside him. He's crumbling to the floor of the bathroom even as the door finally opens and someone gasps, and all he can think of is that at least he didn't put his hand through the mirror and he laughs just a bit manically.

"Oh, Seth. Seth. What happened? Are you okay? What happened?"

Arms around him, pulling him close and holding him in tight so he doesn't splatter like blood on the tiled floor.

"Seth, what--?"

His eyes sting, his eyes hurt, and his hands move to cover his face and they come back wet and he shakes his head. He can't, he can't, he's breaking down, like Ryan only worse, because he's not the one that's blind but it still hurt so fucking much.

"Seth, please, talk to us."

"Is it Ryan?"

He snorts, a painful sound that ends in a sob and his hand is shoved deep into his mouth, biting it and making it hurt but it's not enough. And this isn't his secret to tell but he can't keep it inside anymore. He can't even fucking breathe how the fuck is he supposed to keep a secret like that--

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, so hard that he groans in the back of his throat.

"What do we do?"

"Call Ryan. Even if they have brok--"

"No, no, no, no," Seth says, shaking his head, pulling away from them because they are not who he wants, they are not Ryan. His throat is tight and he can barely breathe and his head throbs with each pulse of his heart and his eyes are heavy lidded and he knows he's still holding more of it inside than he's let out.

He pushes himself away on his hands, like he's afraid and they are going to attack him if he so much as breathes wrong. He pulls away until his back connects to the wall -- later he'll find out that it wasn't the wall, but the low side of the bathtub -- and sighs, leaning against it, closing his eyes.

His words come out in a rush.

"He used to look at me sideways, you know? He used to. He'd just glance at me out of the corner of his eyes and say nothing and I'd know what he was trying to tell me. Or he'd just stand there and raise an eyebrow and have this look in his eyes that would mean, _Seth, you're being an idiot. More than usual. Take a shower because you're starting to stink up the house_ and I'd know that was what he was saying. I can't--" He shakes his head, a hard shake, and another sob doesn't quite form in his throat. "He used to say so much with his eyes because he's not exactly verbose and he thinks I say a lot with my eyes. HA! I'm mute against him and how am I gonna know what he's thinking now if I can't see his eyes. How am I going to-- I miss his eyes. They look at me but don't see me and I miss his eyes seeing me. And I just, I just want to see him see me, just one last time, just once more, God, just once more, just once more--"

His words end there, in mid thought, in mid phrase, and he shakes his head again, noticing the pressure of his hands on his face, the wetness on his cheeks. He blinks, pulls his hands down, and looks at Emily and Jennifer and Lara, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, looking at him with eyes bloodshot and trembling lips.

"Seth, what--?"

Lara's question ends in a sigh, and Seth's face crumbles into a grimace, hand on his mouth, and he whispers, "Ryan's blind."

*****

"Is there something wrong, Seth?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"..."

"..."

"Ryan's blind."

"Yes."

"He's blind."

"I know."

"I'm not... I don't think I'm coping very well with that."

"Why do you think so?"

*****

After that, he doesn't remember much.

He remembers, or thinks he remembers, Emily taking his car keys and being shoved into the back seat of the Rover. It's all jumble of emotions and frustration and anger and his hands closing into fists and digging into his palms even as he walks through the elevator in his apartment building, and he can see Emily and Lara walking out of the parking lot and to the street. They are going to call for a cab back to the campus, to their dorm. He gave them a twenty because, really, it's the least he can do for them after they had to drive him home, he was such a wreck.

His brain is filled with fog, like he's in that state between asleep and awake, when you can't quite focus on anything, when you dream of spiders and hands at your feet and then you're blinking at the light on your eyes and the next thing you see is a room you don't recognize and it's your dream and then you blink and it isn't. It feels just like that, because Seth's standing here, in front of the elevator, fingers pushing at the button and he can't quite remember Lara's face or Jen's words or the way Emily reached for him and cupped his face and cried a little bit.

Seth told them because they deserved to know, after his very spectacular nervous breakdown in the middle of the bathroom. He told them and cried and then told them so more and cried until his eyes hurt, not for the tears he was holding back but for the ones he had shed, and then he thinks he babbled something about Ryan and the ocean and the pier and a skateboard and a bike. He's not sure. It's almost like being drunk, only instead of being happy there's this hole in your chest, like a black hole, and it just keeps eating everything that's close enough to be pulled by its gravitational field. The gravitational field of Seth's black hole? Pretty fucking amazing.

He's not half himself as he walks out of the elevator and into the fourth floor. He makes his way into the apartment and goes to his bedroom. He only uses to get books from; or used to, at least. He stands by the threshold and glances at Ryan over his shoulder. Ryan, sitting on his bed, book on his hands, and Seth notices the small dots where words should be printed and everything hurts anew. Ryan's right hand moves over the pages, his left one touching the top of the hourglass, leaning against his bend thigh. The crystal hourglass, the one Ryan seems to be oddly attached to, a little bit bigger than his palm, catches the light coming from the pulled curtains and it empties as Seth stands here and watches Ryan. Ryan, with an easiness and knowledge that comes from countless times having done this, turns the hourglass upside down and lets it lean against his thigh once again, fingers moving over dots that whisper words Seth can't hear.

Seth breathes in harshly and closes the door of his room after himself. He falls on the bed, face first, closes his eyes and lets sleep take him.

They'll have to talk about whatever it is that's not working between them. They'll have to talk, but Seth thinks it can wait until he feels half human and not entirely dead.

*****

"Why do you think so?"

"Because..."

"..."

"I think I had a nervous breakdown."

"When?"

"Four days ago."

"Okay. What happened?"

"..."

"Seth, this doesn't work if you don't talk to me."

"..."

"Listen, if you want to wait until you feel more comfortable--"

"No, it's not that. I need to get past this."

"Okay. Why?"

"Because I'm worthless to Ryan if I don't."

*****

Monday, February 15th.

They aren't living, Seth thinks one morning, a week and a half since his very personal breakdown, they are just passing time. Ryan keeps on going to the institute and Seth pretends he actually cares about what it is they try to teach him at Berkeley, and one of them always remembers to feed Sam but they aren't living. At some point, Seth's not even sure when or how, one of them stopped reaching for the other one. He doesn't even know if it was him or Ryan who didn't take the other's hand at night three days ago and they seem to have gotten too afraid, too fearful, too something, and are unable to reach the breach and find each other.

It's Monday, perfect bright day, blue sky and amazing sun making its way inside the apartment through the half pulled curtains and if Seth were to close the distance to the window, he could feel the sun on his skin. Instead, he sits across from Ryan on the kitchen table and neither of them speaks and Sam noses his knee. Sam adores Ryan, Seth knows, but Sam also seems to know that if one of them is going to reach for the other, it will be Seth, not Ryan.

He's already gone five times to Dr. Jackson's -- JJ's -- office but either he needs years of therapy or it's just not working, because right now, all he needs is to be able to look at Ryan and not feel this anger simmering underneath his very skin against the world at large and Dawn and Frank in particular.

They can do this, this horrible dance around one another, until the very end of time. Ryan can be certain Seth's going to leave the following year, when graduation comes around and a good job is offered and Seth can continue to feel himself lose his voice, wanting nothing more than to lash out first at all the things he doesn't get or understand.

He looks up at Ryan. Ryan, face down, one hand curled around the black mug of coffee -- the same one Kirsten bought for Ryan on their senior year of high school, after the previous one cracked when she was doing the dishes -- the other hand holding onto the edge of the table

_hand that has to move from the edge to the center, to the plate, find silverware by touch alone_

and Seth has always known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he knows more about the stars and the sea than what goes in Ryan's head, hands not quite touching in bed.

"I'm in love with you," Seth says all of a sudden, words easy and simple and perfect in his tongue, tasting of the ocean and the sand and Ryan, fitting like nothing has ever done before.

Ryan lifts his head, blue eyes blinking blindingly -- blindingly, blindingly, blindingly, blind, blind, blindblindblind -- at him, in the general direction of him, of his voice, on Ryan's left. He's always been on Ryan's left. Seth's hand tightens on the mug until the white knuckles shake with visible strain.

They could do this forever, until both of them ache from the inside out, until they can't remember what started this or even how to end it. They can do that, and Seth can stop breathing at will just as easy.

Ryan blinks, blue eyes electric and unseeing, two shades too clear to be the Newport ocean but just as perfect. His face crumbles into a grimace, a shake of his head, and the hand on the edge of the table, that keeps him grounded, loosens and moves to his mouth. Seth can almost see him losing North and South and Forward and Behind, before his fingers fit perfectly on the inside of Ryan's elbow and Ryan leans into his touch.

Seth turns around, slowly, the beat of his heart silencing everything around them, every sound from the outside of their lives. There's no need to prove that you're strong, he thinks, leaning forward, close, so close-- I've got you. I've--

"I've got you," Seth whispers against the slide of lips that fit on the soft dent of Ryan's mouth. It's an unexpected place to find belonging but he's discovered they fit like this, the tip of his nose brushing Ryan's cheek, his tongue flicking gently against parted lips, breath pushing greedily and brokenly into Ryan's mouth. And he breaks under Ryan's touch, under the very weight, gasping for air as Ryan breathes in quick into his and they're kissing, touching, hands moving slowly from nothingness to face, hip and they tumble, falling but being caught.

They aren't better, they aren't even right, but touch does wonderful things, can heal all things, and it feels like settling them together, like pieces clicking into place.

"I've got you. I have you," is gasped in between breathing of lungs, and hands shift from hip and belly and thigh with no thought of anything more taxing, more urgent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized this chapter was really, really long. Wow. Also, god, how I loved it when they used to say "hey" to each other. It meant so much, and it always meant so much to me because of them.


End file.
